•1,735,910 PVCs collected; 483,868 uncollected
By Chuks Okocha
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is to deploy no fewer than 20,000 ad-hoc staff for the conduct of the September 19 governorship election in the 2, 627 polling units and 192 wards in Edo State.
Also, of the 2,210,534 registered voters in the state, 1,735,910 voters have collected their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) while the number of uncollected PVCs is 483,868.
The Technical Advisor to INEC Chairman, Prof. Bolade Eyinla, said yesterday at a virtual meeting with journalists, which was organised by the International Press Council (IPC), that the recruitment of the 20, 000 ad hoc staff was being done through INEC’s portal.
He said the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members serving in the state would constitute a larger percentage of the ad-hoc staff while
others would be selected from the INEC ad-hoc recruitment portal.
He said: “The youth corps members will constitute the larger percentage because they will be deployed mostly as presiding officers. The online recruitment is essentially to create a database of election workers towards the conduct of the election.
“Also ongoing is the training of all security personnel to be deployed for the election. INEC has also come up with a code of conduct and rules of engagement for the security agencies.
“The code of conduct and rules of engagement will be distributed to all the security personnel deployed for the election to guide them properly.”
He explained that the commission has designed an election policy within the context of the conduct of election in a pandemic.
“We are aware that as at today, Edo State has 2,399 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and recorded a total of 100 deaths.
“So, with these statistics from the NCDC, INEC has come up with a policy book with strict adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures and guidelines on the election so that everyone, including the media can be guided.
“The uncollected PVCs have been deposited with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for safe keeping so that nobody can have access to them,” he stated.
Eyinla added that 14 political parties had fielded candidates for the governorship election.
He said 12 of the political parties presented male candidates while two presented females.
According to him, the commission has deployed non- sensitive materials for the election while the sensitive ones will be kept with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) two days to the election for deployment to the local government areas and polling units.
He added that the commission will post-election results on the viewing portal from various polling units.
“It is not anything near what we call electronic transmission of results. The portal was created to bring results recorded on form EC8 and pasted at the various polling units.
“It is that same result pasted at the various polling units that INEC will upload to the portal for everybody to see,” he said.
Eyinla urged the electorate to make good use of the portal, adding that it would help clear their doubts where necessary.
