TheCable

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it will track materials deployed for the Edo governorship election electronically.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, said this on Monday while meeting with stakeholders in Benin, the state capital, ahead of the Saturday poll.

This is just as Mohammed Adamu, inspector-general of the police (IGP), announced that 31,000 police officers would be deployed for the election to curtail violence.

Yakubu said the electoral body is ready for the election, and that voter education and sensitisation is taking place in parts of the state.

“We have made arrangements for the movement of personnel and materials to all polling units on election day,” he said.

“The commission has taken every step and made every arrangement for the election holding this weekend. We are also working to track the movement of these materials online so that there will not be a diversion. We are tracking the vehicles.”

He appealed to all political parties, their candidates and supporters to be well-behaved to ensure a peaceful election, promising their “votes will count”.

“Polling unit-level results will be uploaded for public view. However, this will not happen where the process is disrupted by violence or malpractices,” he said.

“The Commission is determined that no one will benefit from impunity or rewarded for bad behaviour such as vote-buying, ballot box snatching and stuffing, multiple voting, hijacking and diversion of election materials, disruption of collation, falsification of results, attack on INEC officials or compelling them to declare unofficial results.”

The IGP who spoke earlier said all the polling units in the state have been mapped out to ensure that police officers are deployed for a hitch-free poll.

“Aside from the optimal deployment of our intelligence assets to pro-actively frustrate any threat to the elections, we shall be deploying a total of 31,000 police personnel for the purpose of protecting the personnel and assets of INEC, the electorate, and residents of Edo state before, during and immediately after the elections,” he said.

“As part of our election security plans, all the three senatorial districts, 18 local government areas, 192 wards and 2,627 polling units across the state have been appropriately mapped out, and adequate deployments will be made to ensure security.”