On Tuesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Kogi, disclosed that a total of 1.6 million Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) have been issued to their owners in the state.
Briefing journalists on the commission’s preparations ahead of Saturday’s general elections, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Kogi, Dr. Hale Gabriel Longpet, said that the 1.6 million eligible voters were out of the 1.9 million residents who registered to vote in the election.
Lonpet said that the 1.6 million voters represent 84 percent of the registered population in the state.
The REC commended the electorate in Kogi for their enthusiasm in coming out to collect their PVCs, and urged them to come out en mass to cast their votes on the elections dates.
“As part of our preparedness for the elections, we have so far collected 3,508 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), which have been configured to be used in all the 3,508 Polling Units across the state.
“We have also received additional 282 backups BVAS to be used in case of any eventuality during the elections.
“It will interest you to know that we used some of the BVAS to conduct the recent Mock Accreditation exercise in the state to test the integrity of the BVAS, and they gave us excellent results.
“Except for a few cases where issues of the machine not recognising fingerprints of some farmers was experienced, but by simply using Methylated Spirit solved it.
“One good thing about the BVAS is that it will help improve the transparency of election results and increase public confidence in electoral outcomes in the 2023 elections,” he assured.
The REC further disclosed that the deployment of election materials to the 21 LGAs of the state has been done and that more materials arrived at the CBN yesterday for collection by the commission.
He said that Ad hoc staff, Presiding, and Assistant Presiding Officers, have been recruited and trained with practical demonstrations in their ability to use the BVAS for successful and credible conduct of the elections.
He added that the training of technicians that would handle any challenge that might arise with the BVAS had also been concluded.
On security, Longpet said that the commission had held meetings with Heads of security agencies in the state, who had assured the commission of peaceful and violence-free elections.
While reiterating the commission’s preparedness and readiness to conduct free, fair, and credible elections in the state, Longpet called on political parties, politicians, and their supporters to ensure they abide by the rules and regulations guiding election conduct.
