Bayelsa, Imo, Kogi gov’ship: INEC deploys 46,084 staff, non-sensitive materials

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday said all nonsensitive materials had been deployed for the November 11 governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo, Kogi states.

The chairman of the commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this in Abuja at a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs).

He said the three elections would involve 5,409,438 registered voters who are expected to 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.

“Last week, 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. We look forward to improved performance of the BVAS in voter accreditation and result upload in the forthcoming elections,” Yakubu said.

He said while INEC is leaving no stone unturned in other areas of preparations for the governorship elections, the commission plans to deploy a total of 46,084 regular and ad hoc staff for the three elections.

Yakubu said INEC had so far accredited 126 national and international organisations, collectively deploying 11,000 observers for the elections.