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•Takes cash delivery, other requests from CBN
From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
National commissioner for information and voter education of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Festus Okoye, spoke on the sidelines in Abuja after taking delivery of the computers for the Control centre at the 2023 General election National Collation centre
How ready is INEC for Saturday’s election?
Today is Thursday. The materials are already live in the state offices to the various local governments. Some of the state offices moved their materials on Wednesday. And some on Thursday. You know that the BVAS machines are much. What we are doing is that we are moving the BVAS with trucks. Some of the states have already moved the BVAS with trucks to the various local governments on Thursday morning.
As far as the commission is concerned, we are ready for this election. Our INEC Citizens contact centre is already up and running. The national collation center is almost ready. As far as the commission is concerned, we are ready for this election.
How reliable will be the information your partner handling your contact centre be and what is the conviction that they will not influence whatever that is going to happen?
The facilities in the contact centre have been handed over to commission and every person you see in there is a staff employed by the commission. The management of the IT components is done by the commission. So, the only thing they provided for the commission are just these gadgets; apart from that, every other thing that is in the Contact Centre is managed by the commission.
Are you assuring Nigerians that nothing will necessitate the postponement of the election?
The responsibility of the commission is to supervise this election and that is exactly what we are doing. We have told Nigerians that we have acquired the BVAS for purposes of voter authentication and verification. And these BVAS will be deployed to the 176,846 polling units in Nigeria.
But we are not going to deploy the BVAS to the 240 polling units where we do not have registered voters. Secondly, we have also acquired redundancies for the 8809 registration areas in case there is a challenge in any of the polling units; we can respond and respond speedily. We are also going to keep some redundancies in the 774 LGAs of Nigeria.
Now, these BVAS have been delivered to location in the various states under heavy security. And since Wednesday, the BVAS machines have been moving to the various local governments.
We have also printed presidential results sheets and presidential ballot papers. We have also printed senatorial ballot papers and result sheets. We have also printed House of Representatives ballots and result sheets. And all of them were delivered to the Central Bank some one week ago, some two weeks ago. Now, all these ballots and result sheets have been inspected by our own staff. And in some of the states, the political parties, civil society groups and organizations and the media inspected them on Wednesday.
They left the Central Banks in some of these states to the local governments on Wednesday, in the bulk of the states, the ballot papers and the results will leave on Thursday morning. And they are inspected by political parties by civil society groups and organizations and and the media.
We had concluded the training of our Supervisory Presiding Officers. We have concluded the training of our Presiding Officers and Assistant Presiding Officers, the Collation Officers are still undergoing training as at Thursday. The Registration Area Technical Support Staff have been trained, and they have been deployed.
So, in terms of our own preparations, in terms of our own deployment, we are ready. We have also deployed and batched all the non-sensitive materials required for the conduct of this election. As far as the commission is concerned, we are ready for this election. We are only waiting for Saturday so that Nigerian citizens can move to the polling units and begin to cast their ballots.
What assurances did the security agencies give to the commission during your meeting with them on Wednesday?
In terms of assurances from the security agencies, we had a high level meeting with the leadership of all the security agencies, and they rolled out their deployment plans, and also the plans they have to secure the electoral environment and make it conducive for Nigerians to cast their votes.
As you are aware, the Nigerian police force is the lead agency in terms of electronic security, but the law and the Constitution also permit them to seek the assistance of other security agencies in terms of carrying out the responsibility and task of maintaining law and order and that is exactly what what they are doing. At the state level, our Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) have been meeting with the Commissioners of police in the various states and the heads of the various security agencies.
The same thing is going on at the local government level. So, in terms of security deployment, security assurance, we have the assurance of the security agencies.
But as I have pointed out, our remit is to organise and supervise elections.
When is the commission giving the breakdown of collected PVCs?
The chairman of the commission has a preliminary figure of collected and uncollected PVCs. So, we may likely have a commission meeting today, Thursday. And the moment it is validated, the chairman will be the person who will release it to the Nigerian public.
What about the response from the CBN over the request for cash support?
We don’t have any challenge with the CBN because whatever the CBN promised to give us, they have started giving us.
