By Okey Maduforo Awka
Anambra gubernatorial election would take place in a total of 5,718 polling units in the area while a total of 24,000 adhoc staff have been deployed to those polling units ahead of the election in November 8th this year .
According to the National Commissioner Mr Sam Olumekun who is the Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee shortly after concluding the mock accreditation and uploading of votes in the state , the Commission is 99 percent ready for the election adding that all that is required for a smooth conduct of the exicise has been done .
“We have 5,720 polling units in Anambra state two other polling units are what we call zero polling units because they don’t have registered voters allocate to them so we don’t deploy electoral staff there so the election would take place in 5,718 polling units”
“Apart from this we don’t have any fear of insecurity and we have been interfacing with security operatives and they assured us that we should not entertain any fears”
Speaking on areas that used to have security challenges such as Ihiala local government area he assured that voting would take place in those polling units as against what happened in the last election where they were relocated to the Council headquarters.
“In Ihiala, those us you who were part of the run off election last time we moved the polling units to the local government headquarters and that was in those areas that had security challenges and they all voted on that day”
“We are still discussing with the security agencies and the announced that they have taken control of those areas which means that there would be voting in those polling units and no longer at the local government headquarters”
“But if at the end of our discussions with them they still discover that there is still problems they would vote at the local government headquarters”
“We are going to make use of about 24,000 adhoc staff for the election and there would be secured personnels at the polling units but in line with the international standards we do not allow armed personnel to be at the polling units”
Olumekun also explained that though there would be security operatives at the polling units thru would not bear arms as it is against international standards for the conduct of elections.
“But they would have locations where the armed personnel would be and be monitoring activities on the election day”
He explained that the mock accreditation and uploading of votes were aimed at perfecting the use of the BIVAS and to test run the entire process adding that each polling unit has extra BIVAS in case of hitches .
“What we did today was a mock accreditation exicise and the BiVAS is used for two things , one is for the accreditation of voters a d the other is for upload of results and what we did today was a mock accreditation of voters using the BiVAS and we also did a mock upload of results using the BiVAS”
“We had a mock accesment of the performance of the BIVAS and it was successful”
In the area of transportation, he announced that the Commission has engaged the National Union of Road Transport Workers as well as the Federal Road Safety Corps adding that those in the riverine areas are going to be provided with boats for easy movement of staff and materials.
“We met with transporters and the Road Safety personnel were there with the National Union of Road Transport Workers and we signed all the Memorandum Of Understanding with them and they would be paid half of the cost and half later after the election”
“Again for the riverine areas we have made provisions for hiring of boats so in terms of logistics we are ready”
“We deliver sensitive materials about 48 hours to the election and that is what we are going to do again” he noted.
