The electoral body in Nigeria is warming up to conduct off-cycle governorship elections in three states, and about 5.4 million voters will be participating in the elections.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it will deploy 46,084 regular and ad hoc staff for the off-cycle governorship election.
The election will hold on November 11 in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi states.
The Chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, made this known in his remarks at a meeting.
Meeting was held at the INEC Conference Room, Abu on October 20 with Resident Electoral Commissioners.
According to him, the three elections will involve 5,409,438 registered voters.
They will vote in 10,510 polling units spread across 649 electoral Wards in 56 Local Government Areas.
He said that so far, all non-sensitive materials for the election have been delivered to the three States.
Also, the INEC chairman said other preparatory activities, including training were on course.
However, Yakubu said that valuable lessons have been learnt from the 2023 General Election. He says it will help the body improve performance in the forthcoming elections.
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Elections Observers
He also said that INEC had so far accredited 126 national and international organisations.
They are collectively deploying 11,000 observers for the election which is three weeks away from now.
“Although the portal for media accreditation closes on Tuesday 24 October 2023.
“We have received applications from 80 media organisations seeking to deploy 1,203 personnel. They are made up of journalists and technical/support staff to report on the elections.
“The 18 political parties participating in the elections are deploying 137,934 agents made up of 130,093 polling and 7,841 collation agents.
“We are also finalizing arrangements for vehicles and boats for land and maritime movement of personnel and materials,” the INEC Chairman said.
Security
Furthermore, Yakubu restated that the Commission is concerned about the prevailing insecurity and election-related violence in the three states.
“We have been reassured of adequate deployment by the security agencies.
“On our part, we will continue to deepen our engagement with the security agencies and more meetings are planned in the next few days.
“Similarly, the Commission will hold a series of meetings with stakeholders at the national level to ongoing engagements at State level,” he added.
