Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has assured stakeholders in Edo of the commission’s readiness for the September 21 governorship election.
Yakubu told the stakeholders in Benin on Wednesday to cooperate with the commission to ensure a credible election. He noted that the meeting was a tradition convened on the eve of major off-cycle governorship elections and jointly addressed by the INEC chairman and the inspector-general of police.
He explained that the purpose was to interact with political parties and candidates, accredited observers, the media and other stakeholders on the preparations for the election.
“In particular, the IG will address us on security preparations for the elections, while I will address you on the electoral preparation and together, we will respond to issues and concerns you may wish to raise”, he said.
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The INEC chair said on the part of INEC, active preparations for the election started last year with the release of the timetable and schedule of activities for the election as required by law.
He disclosed that 13 statutory activities were listed beginning with the publication of the notice of election and ending with the election day, adding that 11 out of the 13 activities had been concluded.
“We have already published the final list of candidates. However, there are two adjustments to the list.
“By court order, the commission has replaced the running mate with the candidate of the Labour Party.
“Similarly, the National Rescue Movement (NRM), which could not file its nomination on schedule has obtained a court order to compel the commission to include the party on the ballot.
“We have complied with the court order. Consequently, 18 political parties are now participating in the 2024 Edo state governorship election,” he added.
The chairman disclosed that following the conclusion of the recent Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) in Edo, 184,438 Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) were delivered to the state.
He said the figure was made up of 119,206 new voters and 65,232 verified applications for transfer into Edo, transfer within the state, cards reprinted or replaced as provided by law.
He added that softcopies of the entire register of voters have been made available to each political party fielding candidates in the election.
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“In the next few days, the commission will publish the detailed breakdown of PVCs collected for each of the 4,519 polling units across the state.
“Meanwhile, all uncollected PVCs will be mopped up from the 18 local government areas and warehoused in the Central Bank of Nigeria until after the election.
“INEC had so far accredited 134 groups (124 domestic and 10 international) deploying 1,836 observers and accredited 114 media organisations deploying 721 journalists.
“We have also accredited thousands of agents representing candidates and political parties at the 4,730 polling and collation locations. There are 4,519 polling units, 192 ward collation centres, 18 local government collation centres and the state collation centre.
“We are deploying the BVAS machines for voter accreditation and uploading results to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal”, he said.
Greg Igbinomwanhia, chairman, the Inter-party Advisory Committee (IPAC), urged political parties to play by the rules to ensure free, fair and credible election.
