Ondo election: Stakeholders inspect sensitive materials before distribution

Ahead of Saturday’s governorship election in Ondo State, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has revealed that sensitive materials for the election will be distributed on Thursday.

The electoral body disclosed this during the inspection of the sensitive materials by major stakeholders in the state.

With the inspection done at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), where the materials were housed upon arrival, the state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mrs. Oluwatoyin Babalola, explained that the reason for the inspection of the sensitive materials was in a bid to show transparency of the commission.

Babalola noted that showing the stakeholders that the sensitive materials were still sealed and not tampered with showed that the commission is committed to delivering a free, fair, and credible election.

She said, “We have our schedule for distribution of materials. We received the materials on Monday; we scheduled Wednesday for the inspection of the materials; the distribution is going to be on Thursday.

“The reason we invited critical stakeholders such as security officers, political parties, observers, and the media, among others, to this inspection is to show transparency of all the sensitive materials as they were received. You could see that they were wrapped; nobody had tampered with them.

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“When we come tomorrow (Thursday) for distribution, we will open them Local Government by Local Government, give them to the Electoral Officers, and we will start with the most far LG so that they can get to their LG on time. When they get to the LG, they will start distributing to registration areas and polling units.”