Air Marshal Hassan Bala Abubakar, Chief of the Air Staff of Nigeria, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to offset its debts on some services rendered to the electoral body.
Abubakar made the call on Monday in Abuja when he hosted a delegation of INEC management, led by the Commission’s Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, who visited the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Headquarters in Abuja on a working visit.
“I would like to seize this opportunity to remind the chairman that there are some outstanding bills which are yet to be cleared by INEC. The settlement of those bills will enable us to serve you better,” the Air Force chief said.
While noting that the successful conduct of elections is hinged on security and well-choreographed logistics supply chain management, he hughkighted that NAF has been INEC’s dependable partner in providing security in addition to rapid airlift for the distribution of sensitive and non-sensitive electoral materials across the country.
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He said, “I assure you that we remain willing, able and ready to continue supporting INEC as we have always done in the past.
“At the moment, our C-130s are undergoing maintenance but we have other aircraft that can be employed to move sensitive materials. The caveat is that we need to move those materials a little earlier due to the capacity of the airplanes that we have available.
“I would like to seize this opportunity to remind the chairman that there are some outstanding bills which are yet to be cleared by INEC. The settlement of those bills will enable us to serve you better.”
INEC’s Chairman, on his part said for the February 3 by-elections in three senatorial districts, 17 federal and 28 state constituencies spread across 80 Local Government Areas, 575 Registration Areas/Wards and 8,934 PUs, involving 4,904,627 registered voters, 4,613,291 Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) have been collected.
He said, “In handling such a huge national assignment, the commission cannot do it alone. That is why we seek to mobilise every national asset, including NAF.
