From Emmanuel Adeyemi, Lokoja
The Kogi State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr Hale Longpet, has said that of the 1.9 million registered voters in the state, only 1.6 million voters have been accredited and are eligible to vote in Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly election.
Addressing reporters on the level of preparedness of INEC for the general election, the REC said the commission was 100% ready to conduct the election in a free, peaceful and credible manner.
He said all 14 stages of the election have been successfully carried out in the state with the training of all levels of officers while the training of Returning Officers and Collation officers is now ongoing stressing that 90 % of the ad hoc staff that will participate in the election are members of National Youth Service Corps.
The REC disclosed that 3,508 BIVAS machines were allocated to the 3,508 polling units in the state with 286 backups while 24 of the machines were found to be defective during the mock elections, but have been quickly replaced by INEC headquarters.
Longpet said the congested polling units in the state have been decongested by creating additional polling units, with a total of 3,508 from 2,560 polling units.
He said that mock elections were conducted in two Local Government Areas each of the three senatorial districts in the state, saying the minor problem encountered during the Mock election was with fingerprints especially those from the rural areas but said the facial capturing was used as an alternative to those who were affected.
While expressing satisfaction with the level of turnout for the PVCs, he said the initial turnout was not encouraging but stressed that in the dying days of the PVC registration and collection, the population of people that came out increased.
He debunked the news on social media that its Okehi office was bombed, saying the explosion took place at the local government secretariat but was very close to the INEC office.