Damage to Edo INEC office now fixed, says Mahmood Yakubu

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the damage caused by flood to its headquarters in Edo has been fixed.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, spoke on Monday during the commission’s meeting with political parties at the INEC headquarters in Abuja.

The meeting was held to discuss the Edo and Ondo governorship elections scheduled for September 21 and November 16 respectively.

In May, INEC’s headquarters in Benin, the Edo state capital, was flooded following torrential rainfall.

Movable and immovable items were submerged, and some of the voter enrollment machines configured for the continuous voter registration (CVR) were affected.

Speaking at the meeting on Monday, Yakubu said INEC has recovered from effects of the flooding on the facility.

“The damage to the physical infrastructure has been fixed. Vehicles have been repaired while other movable and immovable facilities have been serviced, refurbished or are being gradually replaced,” he said.

“We have delivered additional bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) machines to Edo state for the training of election duty personnel as well as contingency for election day support.”

The INEC chairman said before the end of the week, the electoral umpire will publish the final figures of new voters in Edo and Ondo states as well as their distribution by gender, age, occupation and disability.

“Thereafter, the timetable for the collection of uncollected permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) from previous registration and new registrants from the latest continuous voter registration (CVR) will be published,” he said.

“The commission is aware that going by our timetable and schedule of activities, the register of voters will be published not later than 30 days before the date fixed for the election.

“We wish to reassure the chairmen of political parties that each party fielding candidates in the forthcoming governorship election in Edo state will receive the soft copy of the register on 20th August 2024 while that of Ondo state will take place on 15th October 2024.”