The Bayelsa Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr Monday Tom, says INEC is satisfied with the percentage rate of Permanent Voter Card (PVC) collection, promising that the body is adequately prepared to conduct the Nov. 16 governorship election in the state.
Tom made the assertion in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers capital.
The REC said only about 33,000 PVCs remained uncollected out of the 923,000 for eligible registered voters in the state, representing over 90 per cent of distributed PVCs ahead of the governorship election.
โWe actually extended PVC collection to between Sept. 2 and Sept. 30, just to ensure that electorate have their PVCs.
โAnd during the exercise, the response was high because out of about 47,000 PVCs with INEC over 15,000 were collected, leaving a balance of about 33,000 unclaimed PVCs,โ he said.
He also said that so far, the commission had concluded training for INEC staff and distribution of non-sensitive materials.
โAs far as the commission is concerned, we are doing the best to get totally prepared for the Bayelsa gubernatorial election.
โWeโve concluded on most of the training for officers, we have trained the Senior Polling Officers (SPOs), we have done all levels of non-sensitive materials received, batched and set for onward distribution to the racks.
โDue to the difficult terrain in Bayelsa with about 70 per cent water component, we adopted to use the racks system and not the Local Government Areas, this is to ensure prompt and easy access to the polling units.
โSo far, we have got all our non-sensitive materials for the election, we have harvested the SPOs and by next week we shall be training the Polling Officers (POs) and the Assistant Polling Officers (APOs),โ he added.
Tom said finances required for the conduct of the election were already secured at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
According to him, planning an election is like climbing a ladder, adding that so far, the commission was almost done with the entire process.
โToday, we are handing over registers to 45 political parties that will participate in the election and this exercise represents almost the concluding part of every election plan,โ he said.
