Less than 24 hours, the polls in Kogi State will commenced and all preparations are now geared towards a success while about 18 candidates will be slogging it out for the number one seat in the state, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has opened all Registration Area Centers for the deployment of sensitive materials.
Speaking to journalists at Press Conference in Lokoja today, Friday, 10 November, 2023, the Kogi state Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Dr. Hale Gabriel Lonpet said 1.883.160 Nigerians who collected their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) are expected to vote in the off-cycle Governorship elections in Kogi State.
Dr. Lonpet said the figures are for those who collected their permanent Voters Card while registration exercises were on and all sensitive and non sensitive materials, especially the BVAS, have been distributed considering first Local governments that are further away from the state INEC Headquarter.
He noted that for the success of the off-cycle elections in Kogi State, the Commission has deployed two (2) National Commissioners, nine (9) Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) and Administrative Secretaries (ASs) as well as additional staff from different States to each of the three States to support the process.
“They are deployed across the senatorial zones in the States. Election is a multi-stakeholder responsibility. As with every election, lessons have been learnt from recent elections,” he said.
He said that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) have been configured for deployment to Polling Units as the only means of voter verification and fingerprint/facial biometric authentication of voters.
“Polling Unit results will be uploaded to the INEC Result Viewing (IRe) portal.
Extra Seven BVAS have been deployed to Ganaja primary an area with over 13,000 voters who refused to migrate to ensure that exercise is carried on time,” said the REC.
The REC who stressed that all Political parties and candidates have signed the peace accord under the auspices of the National Peace Committee (NPC) reiterated that INEC is ready to deliver a fair and credible but cannot do it alone as such the cooperation of all stakeholders is important, especially security operatives.
“We will continue to ensure free, fair and credible and inclusive elections but INEC cannot do it alone. We have received assurances from the security agencies that the environment will be secure for electoral activities and all participants: voters, electoral officials, accredited observers, the media and polling/collation agents.
SpyeTV News Reports that security has been beefed up in the state and most especially around the Independent National Electoral Commission office in Kogi State.