Hakeem Gbadamosi – Akure
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Ondo state, on Wednesday, said the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine, would be deployed for the next Saturday’s House of Assembly election in the state.
Disclosing this in Akure, the state capital, while supervising the distribution of the sensitive and non-sensitive materials meant for the election, the Acting Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr Oyekola Oyelami, said the BVAS had been re-configured after its usage for the February 25 presidential and National Assembly election.
According to him, the BVAS would be used for the March 18 – state parliament election and added that the materials being distributed by INEC include, ballot papers and results sheets.
He said the materials would be transported to all 18 Local Government Areas of the state where they would be moved to the commission’s Registration Area Centres (RACs) before the polling units on Saturday.
“By Thursday, these materials would be batched from there while on Friday, the materials would arrive at the RAC centres where they would pass the night and as early as 6 am on Saturday, they would be moved to the various polling units for the election.
“Aside from these, we would also be deploying the BVAS which has been reconfigured for the Saturday exercise. So, all of them are working perfectly now and would be used in the polling units,” the REC said.
While expressing INEC’s readiness for the election, Oyelami explained that out of the 18 political parties that registered in the country, only 17 fielded candidates to participate in the House of Assembly election in the state.
He said the leadership of the participating political parties has held a series of meetings with INEC in ensuring peaceful conduct of the election.
He said, “These political parties have already fielded their candidates that would participate in the Assembly election on Saturday and we have deployed our staff too for the timely arrival of material to the polling units.”
He, however, pleaded with the electorates in the state to troop out en mass for the exercise to elect their representatives at the parliamentary house.
“They (electorates) should come out en mass because these lawmakers are the ones that would be making laws on their behalf,” Oyelami said.
The Chairman of the Inter-party Advisory Council (IPAC), in the state, Adesanya Olaoluwa, who supervised the distribution of the materials, said the political parties have shown their readiness for the election.
Olaoluwa explained that the parties are optimistic that the electoral commission would deliver on its promises by ensuring the timely arrival of materials for the weekend exercise.
“We are aware that before Saturday that the election materials would have gotten to their various locations and destination in preparation for the exercise.
“So, we are fully happy that with what we saw and hopefully here today we are that hoping INEC would surely deliver,” he said.
The IPAC chairman also stated that out of the registered 18 political parties in the country, only 17 would take part in the Saturday poll in the state.
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