Ahead of the November 11 governorship election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed that votes would not be counted in any polling unit where violence occurs in Saturday’s governorship election in Bayelsa.
This was revealed by the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, at a stakeholders meeting, in Yenagoa.
Yakubu, represented by the INEC National Commissioner supervising Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa and Rivers, Mrs May Agbamuche-Mbu, noted that INEC would deploy BIVAS to all polling units for the election, adding that all arrangement have been made for the transportation of personnel and materials to ensure that polling unit open on schedule on election day.
“I want to let you know that our BIVAS have been customized for INEC, so INEC details and the name of the parties are on the BIVAS, so any BIVAS you see without INEC details cannot be from INEC. Another thing, we have all the list of the serial number of the BIVAS we are going to use, the result sheets will be sign at the polling units.”
“Where there is violence, it will be zero, we will not return to that polling unit to conduct election.”
“We have recruited and carefully train all category of ad-hoc staff to be deployed to the field, all non sensitive materials have been distributed to all the eight local government area offices of the state, voter education and sensitization is ongoing,” he said.
In his remark, the state Commissioner of Police, Mr Tolani Alausa, said the police were fully prepared to ensure a peaceful election on Saturday, assuring that the force would deploy enough personnel for the election.
Recall that the Inspector-General of Police, Olukayode Egbetokun, has also ordered the distribution of over two hundred operational vehicles for election security management, stressing that dignitaries and very Important Persons would not be allowed to move around with police escorts on election day.
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