The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has moved sensitive materials to local government areas in readiness for the June 16 governorship election in Osun State.
The distribution and movement exercises were done under heavy presence of security agencies at the INEC state headquarters in Osogbo. Journalists, local and international observers, security agents and political party agents witness the distribution, loading and movement of the materials.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner, Professor Abdulganiy Raji, while handing out the materials, said the electoral officers would take the items to their councils where they would be sent to the polling units on Saturday morning.
He expressed the hope that there would be no late arrival of materials to polling units on Saturday. Raji said the ballot papers were colour-coded and customised in the name of each of the 30 local government areas and Modakeke Area Office to discourage electoral malpractice.
He also noted that the result sheets were also customised according to the polling units.
Some of the materials distributed were Bimodal Voters Accreditation System, BIVAS machines, Ballot papers, Result sheets, Booklets, Forms EC 8A, B, C, D,E, forms EC 4zero G, 4 zero G1 and 2.
He disclosed that 76 percent have collected PVCs so far and that collection exercise would close by 3pm on Thursday. He said all arrangements had been made to ensure that there was no inconclusive election and that INEC had been transparent to all stakeholders.
He said, “Today (Thursday), we are moving the sensitive materials to Local Government Areas. We took delivery of the sensitive materials midnight of Wednesday and it has been with us for about 36 hours now. We will start loading the vehicles with the materials to LGAs under heavy security. These materials had been under heavy security since the day we brought them. On the arrival of these materials, we invited the party agents.”
He urged political parties to ensure that their agents were at the INEC LGAs to confirm the quantity of the materials.
The REC added, “I have with me five National Commissioners and in addition, I have twelve supporting RECs. We will load the sensitive materials alphabetically, we have Ife South and Ifedayo, those LGAs are the farthest places that the journey may take more than one hour. Early today, we had loaded the BVAS into the vehicles. BVAs is also a sensitive material. We expect that within the next two to three hours, we would have completed the movements.
“As usual, the materials were customised according to the local government and even to the polling units,” he added.
The party agents expressed satisfaction at the preparedness of the commission and the transparent manner in which the materials were distributed.
No fewer than fifteen political parties will be on the ballot for the governorship election one Saturday. The parties and their candidates had signed a peace pact on Wednesday in the face of rising tensions and desperation by politicians to outdo one another in the contest.
There had been pockets of attacks in some parts of the state including the recent reported shooting at the residence of the governorship candidate of Labour Party, Lasun Yusuff.
But voters have been urged to come out in large numbers as the police are deploying over 21,000 personnel besides the other security agencies during the election.
Meanwhile, there were beehive of activities at the Osun INEC headquarters as no fewer than 200 security operatives were stationed to secure the facility and materials.
Adenitan Akinola
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