…assures electorates of credible polls
By Precious Oham
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, IVEC, Festus Okoye, has said a total number of 988,923 registered voters will vote in the governorship election in Ekiti State.
The INEC National Commissioner stated this during a Roundtable Forum for Media Executives in Ekiti State, on Friday, assured Ekiti electorates of conducting a free, fair and credible election.
He revealed that a total number of 734,746 collected their Permanent Voters Card while reiterating that adhoc staff have been trained.
Okoye said that the non-sensitive materials have been deployed to the 16 LGAs across the state noting that the election would serve as a dress rehearsal for the 2023 general elections.
In his words: “It’s now a matter of common knowledge that we have 16 LGAs in Ekiti State and the election will be staged from 177 registration areas.
“For this particular election, after the commission queued up the voters registers, we came to the conclusion that a total of 988,923 registered voters will vote in this election.
“In other words, after we have queued up the voters register and integrated those who were previously on the voters registers, and those who registered during the continuous voters registration exercise, we came to the conclusion that the total number of those stands at 988, 923.
“Furthermore, as at 27th May 2022, a total of 734,746 persons have collected their Permanent Voters Card. It is important that you have these figures.
“The commission on the election day will deploy the adhoc staff from a total of 104 registration centres, made up of 46 registration areas centres and 61 super registration area centres.
“The commison will also deploy 22,244 polling units in Ekiti State and will deploy slightly above 10,000 adhoc staff to conduct this election.
“I want to announce that the commission is happy and elated at the level of preparations for this election.
“All the 16 LGAs have received the full complement of all the non-sensitive materials. They have dispatched all the non-sensitive materials in accordance with all the registration areas and wards and in accordance with all the polling units.
“We want to assure the people of Ekiti State that we will conduct free fair and credible election.
“For the commission to continue to serve the people better, we bring in new innovations. We are training four staff each of the parties on how to upload to INEC nomination portal.
“We are going to use this particular election to test some of our technological innovations as we make sure that we get everything right during the 2023 general elections.
“These two elections are coming at a very critical period in the life of this nation and will serve as a dress rehearsal for the 2023 general elections.”
At the workshop, several papers were presented which educated participants on the various technological innovations by INEC to ensure credible poll.