For the upcoming off-cycle governorship elections in the states of Imo, Bayelsa, and Kogi in November, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will deploy 46,084 regular and ad hoc staff.
Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the commission, stated this in his remarks at a meeting with resident electoral commissioners on Friday at the INEC Conference Room in Abuja.
He claims that 5,409,438 registered voters will cast their ballots in 10,510 polling places distributed throughout 649 electoral Wards and 56 Local Government Areas during the three elections.
He continued by saying that all non-sensitive electoral materials had already been sent to the three States.
On Friday, October 20, 2023, INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu met with Resident Electoral Commissioners in the INEC Conference Room in Abuja.
Yakubu stated that important lessons from the 2023 General Election have been learned for enhanced performance in the upcoming elections while noting that other pre-election preparations, such as training, are proceeding as planned.
He added that the poll, which is in three weeks, has already seen 126 national and international organizations send 11,000 observers after receiving accreditation from INEC.
“Although the portal for media accreditation closes on Tuesday 24th October 2023, we have received applications from 80 media organisations seeking to deploy 1,203 personnel 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 Chair said.
Yakubu restated that the Commission is concerned about the prevailing insecurity and election-related violence in the three states election will be taking place.
“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 in addition to ongoing engagements at State level,” he added.