Off-cycle Elections: INEC Deploys 46,084 Staff, Confident of BEVAS, IREV Use

Nigeria’s electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC says it is prepared to conduct a free, fair, and credible elections in November 11, 2023 in Kogi, Imo, and Bayelsa states.

INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu addressing Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, from the 26 states of the country at the INEC headquarters, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital said the commission is alive to its responsibilities at the off-cycle elections.

“In the next three weeks, off-cycle Governorship elections will be held in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States. The three elections will involve 5,409,438 registered voters that will vote in 10,510 polling units spread across 649 electoral Wards in 56 Local Government Areas.

So far, all non-sensitive materials for the election have been delivered to the three States. Other preparatory activities, including training, are on course. Valuable lessons have been learnt from the 2023 General Election for improved performance in the forthcoming elections,” he said.

Mahmood said the commission is looking forward to improved performance of the BVAS in voter accreditation and result upload in the forthcoming elections.

“We conducted a mock accreditation involving actual voters in designated polling units in the three States. We had two objectives for the exercise. First, to test the efficacy of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for especially biometric authentication of voters. Secondly, to upload the result to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV). Both tests were successful,” he explained.

He said the commission is leaving no stone unturned for the governorship elections as it plans to deploy a total of 46,084 regular and ad hoc staff for the election.

We have so far accredited 126 national and international organisations collectively deploying 11,000 observers for the election. Although the portal for media accreditation closes on Tuesday 24th October 2023, we have received applications from 80 media organisations seeking to deploy 1,203 personnel made up of journalists and technical/support staff to report on the elections.

The 18 political parties participating in the elections are deploying 137,934 agents made up of 130,093 polling and 7,841 collation agents. We are also finalising arrangements for vehicles and boats for land and maritime movement of personnel and materials.”

The INEC Chairman noted the commission was concerned about insecurity in the three states because the massive deployment of personnel and materials for the election requires a secured environment, which is beyond the commission’s responsibilities.

“We have been reassured of adequate deployment by the security agencies. On our part, we will continue to deepen our engagement with the security agencies and more meetings are planned in the next few days. Similarly, the Commission will hold series of meetings with stakeholders at the national level in addition to ongoing engagements at State level.”

Professor Mahmood Yahubu expressed appreciation to the resident electoral commissioners for their hard work in the conduct of all elections in the country reminding them that their jobs does not end with the general elections alone.

The INEC boss said it was the third meeting between the INEC Chairman and Resident Electoral Commissioners in the last four months

Lateefah Ibrahim