INEC Chairman assures of electronic transmission of Bayelsa, Kogi, Imo Giber polls
…counters Bayelsa REC’s claim of manual transmission of results
…promises meeting with security chiefs on securing elections
By Tunde Opalana
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has assured that results of votes at polling units will be electronically transmitted across Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo states during the November 11 governorship election.
According to him, that is the provision of the law and the Commission is going to comply with the law in conducting credible elections in the three states.
The Chairman disclosed this at Ganaja village polling unit, Ajaokuta area of Kogi State on Saturday while addressing the press immediately after monitoring the mock accreditation exercise ahead of the governorship election.
The mock accreditation exercise was carried out simultaneously on Saturday in the three states and Prof Yakubu in company of senior management staff of the Commission monitored the process in Kogi State.
The team visited designated polling units in three local governments areas of Kogi, Lokoja and Ajaokuta.
Speaking specifically on method to be adopted for accreditation and transmission of election results, the chairman said ” the method is as provided by law, electronic accreditation, electronic upload of results on the IREV portal and that is why we are doing this mock.
“So please disregard whatever was reported about what the REC was said to have said in Bayelsa. That’s going to be the procedure and it’s for that reason that I will advise you also for those who are registered on the IREV portal, that in the next two hours or so, they should go to the IREV portal you will see the result of the mock from all the three states, we are uploading, as we have done in previous elections.”
Prof Yakubu allayed fears heightened by security challenges in the states ahead of the polls.
He said “so far so good in terms of assurance from the security agencies as we can see, they’re even here for the mock. Next week, Friday, there is going to be a high level meeting in Abuja, chaired by myself and the National Security Adviser in which all the security chiefs will be present, no representation, to discuss the issue of security for the three states.
“So, we are on top of the situation in terms of security arrangement and security deployment.
The chairman expressed satisfaction with the mock accreditation exercise across the three states.
He said “feelers from other locations where mock accreditation is taking place was satisfactory.
“I’ve received as we are coming pictures from Bayelsa, and the turnout for the mock accreditation in Bayelsa is impressive.
“In fact, as we speak, in Yenagoa, there is even a queue of voters waiting to be accredited. And we believe it is the same story that we’ll be hearing very soon from Imo.”
At the Ward 9 Ganaja Primary School in Ganaja area of Lokoja local government area, housing one of the largest polling units in the country, the chairman promised provision of adequate BVAS machines for accreditation.
The chairman said the polling unit was chosing “because it is the largest polling unit and most densely populated in Nigeria. It has 13,000 registered voters.”
He gave an indication of redistributing voters in the unit saying ” after the election, the Commission will redistribute the voters to other approximate locations. But for now, we’ll have to conduct the elections with the number of registered voters in this polling unit.
“And for that reason, we are deploying a minimum of eight BVAS machines on election day, Saturday 11, November 2023 for easy accreditation of voters.”
Speaking on how INEC intends to control the crowd on election day, the chairman said ” as you have seen, the desks for the mock accreditation exercise, that’s how we have several desks here because there will be several voting locations on election day.
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“So what will happen on Election Day is that we have broken the register alphabetized by the voter surnames. So if your name begins with an A, there is a particular location where you are going to vote.
“But registers will be posted here on election day so voters will know exactly where they are going to register and there will be officials of the commission that will guide them as to the locations where they are going to vote and as I said, we’ll deploy a minimum of eight BVAS machines to ensure a smooth accreditation of voters here.”
