The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday expressed optimism about the early arrival of materials and officials during the presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled for February 25.
KOKO TV reports that elections in Nigeria have always been characterized by late arrival of materials, with electoral officials arriving at polling units hours after the official commencement of polls.
The commission, however, assured that the forthcoming elections would be different because it had put in place the necessary logistics to ensure that polls open early.
INEC Director (Voter Education and Publicity), Victor Aluko, gave the assurance during a media and civil society organisations roundtable on 2023 elections with the theme “Avoiding landmines, overcoming obstacles and conducting credible elections”, organised by the International Press Centre, which held in Abuja.
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He said, “I assure you that with the system we have put in place, the logistics arrangement and with the fact that we are employing credible persons as electoral officials, I don’t see anyone getting to the polling units late.
“What we do is, we usually activate our racks and we move officials there a night before the election so that very early in the morning, they move to poll units within the registration areas. So, we don’t anticipate a situation where they will arrive late. It won’t happen I assure you.”
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Speaking on the fuel and naira scarcity and its possible impact on the elections, Aluko said the commission had visited officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited and governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria to express its concerns.
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