…as police deploy 20,000 officers

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it will spend about N600m on the Ekiti State governorship election scheduled for next week Saturday (July 14, 2018).

The INEC National Commissioner in charge of the Ekiti election, Prince Solomon Soyebi, said this during an interview with newsmen in Abuja on Friday.

Soyebi, who is also the National Commissioner in charge of Voter Education and Publicity, said over 11,000 officials would take part in the election.

He said, “For the Ekiti election, the aggregate is much because when we talk about the commission spending on Ekiti, I can assure you that we are spending over N600m.”

Soyebi noted that about 280,000 Permanent Voter Cards had not been collected, adding that the collection of PVCs would stop on Sunday, July 9 (tomorrow).

The INEC commissioner said it was likely that once the distribution of PVCs stopped; there would be no fresh registration until after the 2019 general elections.

He said, “Sunday is the deadline for the collection of PVCs. And for Ekiti, there is not likely to be any other Continuous Voter Registration exercise until after the 2019 elections. So, we have been telling people to go and collect their PVCs.”

Soyebi rubbished allegations that the smart card readers had been pre-loaded by INEC in order to manipulate the election in favour of the All Progressives Congress.

The INEC commissioner said the card readers would only be programmed shortly before actual voting and it was not possible for the card readers to be pre-loaded.

He called on politicians to always provide evidence when making allegations as this would help INEC to make amends if need be.

Meanwhile, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Ekiti State, Abdulganiu Raji, has said that the commission is not under any form of threat in the state ahead of the election.

Raji said this during an interview with journalists at the end of the 2nd regular quarterly consultative meeting with security agencies under the auspices of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security in Abuja on Friday.

He also said that there was no room for rigging in the election given the kind of structure that has been put in place by the commission.

On the insinuation that the election may be rigged, Ekiti REC said that the word rigging should be wiped off from the country’s electoral system.

He said, “I don’t know what you want to rig again with the kind of structure we have put in place in INEC. That is what we have been explaining to the people of Ekiti State.”

Also speaking, the Commissioner of Police for Ekiti state, Mr. Bello Ahmed, said over 20,000 security personnel would be involved in the exercise.

The CP said the police would deploy 16,000 of its personnel while other security agencies would make up the remaining number.

On measures put in place, Ahmed said that all the likely flash points in the state had been identified and robust security measures put in place.