Three Days to the gubernatorial and Houses of Assembly elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has commenced the distribution of electoral materials.
The Commission had earlier assured Nigerians on Sunday that reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Registration Systems (BVAS) would be completed by Tuesday in preparation for the polls.
In Oyo State, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Adeniran Tella, while speaking at the Central Bank of Nigerian (CBN) distribution point, expressed the readiness of the Commission in the state to conduct not only free but also credible and acceptable elections.
The electoral materials were distributed in the presence of the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 11 Command, Sikiru Kayode Akande and Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Adebowale Williams, other security operatives, party agents and other critical stakeholders.
Dr. Tella disclosed that the materials, which have been moving to the various local government areas will be taken to the Registration Area Centres (RAC) before taking them to the polling units on election day.
“It is a tradition that we normally move election materials to respective local governments from the local governments to the Registration Areas Centres (RAC) centers and from the RAC centres to the polling units and this always being done at the instance of the security personnel because the security agencies are critical stakeholders in the electoral processes. And it is evident in the last election where activities are greatly influenced by the electoral institute conducting electoral security training for the security personnel in a bid to consolidate all these deals, the electoral institute now came up with phase layers cascaded the electoral security training specifically for the security operatives to flatly mitigate against any security lapses that may likely erupt from electoral violence, that is why we have Assistant Inspector General of Police and Commissioner of Police and instance of the party agents and the media and all people that are stakeholders here.
“As we speak, we are moving down our election materials to respective local governments because of the farer places like Saki and Kishi and some other places.”
In his address, Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 11, Sikiru Akande, assured the support of the Nigeria Police Force throughout the exercise.
“We are solidly behind the INEC to achieve its mandate. We will do all things humanly possible to ensure that the governorship and the House of Assembly elections that we are going to have this weekend are not only free, the elections will be fair and credible in Oyo State by the grace of almighty God.”
Packaged by Kunle Gazali
