The Independent National Electoral Commission on Wednesday assured residents that it was fully prepared for the February 12, 2022, Federal Capital Territory Area Council elections.
The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, stated this when he led the commission’s management team on an on-the-spot assessment on the level of preparedness visit to the INEC FCT Office in Abuja.
He informed the staff that the commission would raise the bar of credibility in the conduct of the election.
Yakubu said, “We have done everything that we are supposed to do in terms of preparations, what remains is for me to hear from you and to assure the voters in the FCT that we have set the standard for conducting credible elections in Nigeria. The FCT Area Council elections 2022 will not lower the bar. If anything, you will see enhanced conduct of credible elections in the Federal Capital.”
While stating that the election was just 16 days away, Yakubu explained that there would be a series of activities going forward.
“This is just the first, next we will go down to the Wards, and we will visit the Wards and engage with the EOs and their staff on the actual preparation on ground,” he said.
Yakubu said that the sensitive materials for the elections would be customized based on the number of constituencies and parties fielding candidates.
“We have 475 candidates nominated by the 17 political parties competing for 68 positions. We have already published the names of the candidates by constituencies. The sensitive materials have also been customized by the number of parties participating,” he said.
Speaking on the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System as well as arrangement for the staff to man the devices, Yakubu said the configuration of the BVAS for all the Polling Units would be finalized by Friday.
He said, “We have the requisite number of staff, we have trained them, and we have the requisite number of technical support that will respond in the event of glitches on Election Day. We have made adequate arrangements so that the Registration Area Technical Support are able to move around on Election Day, in case their services are required.”
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in FCT, Yahaya Bello,
said that the FCT INEC office had taken delivery of 90 per cent of the non-sensitive materials needed for the elections and the same have been distributed to the six Area Councils with strict supervision.
The REC assured that the remaining 10 per cent will be delivered in the next few days.
He said an additional 28,633 new registrants were added to the register of voters to be used for the Area Council elections, bringing to a total, 1,373,492, registered voters in the FCT.
He said, “An analysis of the CVR shows that a total number of 21, 508 males and 21,478 females were captured in the exercise before it was suspended for clean up and printing of the Permanent Voter Cards to be distributed ahead of the FCT elections.”
He said the Register of Voters to be used for the elections have since been printed and soft copies presented to the political parties.
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