INEC deploys 46,084 staff, accredits 11,000 observers for Imo, Kogi, Bayelsa Polls

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), yesterday in Abuja, said it would deploy 46,084 staff for the conduct of the November 11, 2023, governorship polls in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi states.

INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, who disclosed this at a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC), said about 126 national and international organisations collectively deploying 11,000 observers for the election have been accredited by the commission for the polls.

Disclosing that non-sensitive materials for the election had been delivered to the three states, Yakubu said the commission learnt valuable lessons from the 2023 general election for improved performance in the forthcoming elections.

He added the three elections would involve 5,409,438 registered voters that would vote in 10,510 polling units spread across 649 electoral Wards in 56 local councils.

Yakubu said: “While we are 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 elections. We have so far accredited 126 national and international organisations collectively deploying 11,000 observers for the election. Although the portal for media accreditation closes on Tuesday, October 24, 2023, we have received applications from 80 media organisations seeking to deploy 1,203 personnel made up of journalists and technical/support staff to report on the elections. The 18 political parties participating in the elections are deploying 137,934 agents made up of 130,093 polling and 7,841 collation agents. We are also finalising arrangements for vehicles and boats for land and maritime movement of personnel and materials.”

Yakubu also expressed concern about the prevailing insecurity and election-related violence in the three states.

“As we said repeatedly, we are concerned about the prevailing insecurity and election-related violence in the three states. We have been reassured of adequate deployment by the security agencies.”

On our part, we will continue to deepen our engagement with the security agencies and more meetings are planned in the next few days. Similarly, the commission will hold a series of meetings with stakeholders at the national level in addition to ongoing engagements at state level,” he added.

Speaking on the recent mock accreditation involving actual voters in designated polling units in the three states, Yakubu explained that the commission had two objectives for the exercise.

First, according to him, was to test the efficacy of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for especially biometric authentication of voters, while also uploading the result to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).

While declaring that both tests were successful, the INEC chairman said the umpire looks forward to improved performance of the BVAS in voter accreditation and result upload in the forthcoming elections. He added that the commission’s reports of both the 2023 general election and the outcome of its review of the election were being finalised.