The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has stated that it mobilised no fewer than 80,000 commercial vehicles and about 996 boats for the Presidential and National Assembly elections holding today.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu revealed these figures yesterday at a press conference on the Commission’s preparedness for the elections which holds nation wide from 8 am today. According to Yakubu, “we have mobilised 80,000 commercial vehicles and about 996 boats for the deployment of personnel and materials.
Yakubu said that the commission has concluded the deployment of sensitive and non sensitive materials to the 774 local government areas across the country.
“We engaged 825,543 ad hoc staff ranging from presiding officers to collation and returning officers. The materials include 707,892 ballot boxes and voting cubicles, and we are mobilising these to various locations by land and sea.
“We have accredited 120 domestic and 36 international observer groups, deploying accumulative number of 73,000 observers. We have concluded the movement of personnel, materials to the 774 local and 8809 RACs nationwide.
“All arrangements are now in place to facilitate opening of polls at 8 a.m. on Saturday,” he said.
The chairman advised eligible voters to visit gotomypu.ng to obtain location to their polling units, saying in the last 10 days about 190,000 persons had utilised the commission’s various social media platforms to geolacate their Polling Units.
Acting Inspector General of Police (I-G), Mohammed Adamu, reassured of the Police readiness to provide security during the election. “We have some group of people who might want to disrupt the election we have put in place strategy to stop that. We have tactical units of our personnel and other services that will be patrolling everywhere to ensure that the process is not disrupted”.
He added that “the patrolling personnel will be armed and will deal with anybody who wants to disrupt the process in the course of the election, If any electoral offence is committed, we will work with the INEC officials to apprehend the culprit and set up investigative team headed by Commissioner of Police in charge of legal Unit to investigate the cases and prosecute them”.
