According to the Independent National Electoral Commission, the Central Bank of Nigeria is in charge of sensitive materials for the general elections in 2023.
This was disclosed on Tuesday by Festus Okoye, INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee.
It should be recalled that individuals and groups raised serious concerns in 2022 regarding the sanctity of election materials kept by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) following news that the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, expressed interest in running for the country’s presidency.
On June 4, 2022, the Chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, stated that sensitive electoral materials would no longer be sent through the CBN in the interim.
The chairman of INEC said that the electoral body had never had a problem with the CBN since the partnership started, but that an alternative would be found because of “current circumstances.”
Okoye, on the other hand, stated that the commission has printed and delivered the majority of the sensitive materials, such as ballot papers and results, and kept them with the CBN for transportation to the commission’s nationwide local government offices.
Additionally, he mentioned that INEC was close to completing the nationwide delivery of non-sensitive materials.
Okoye stated, “The commission is ready for the February 25 and March 11, 2023 general elections,” in reference to the delivery of sensitive materials prior to the upcoming elections. For Nigeria’s 176,846 polling places, the commission has received the complete Bimodal Voter Accreditation System. Except for the 240 polling units with no voters, the BVAS will be used in all of them. The commission has received the redundancies for the country’s 7,74 local government areas and 8, 809 Registration Areas.
“The BVAS have been put through testing and mock accreditation by the commission, and they are up to date in terms of software and hardware. The commission is pleased with the progress made so far as the BVAS configuration process has begun. Because the BVAS is sensitive election material, it is kept in secure locations with tight security. Nigerians expect the BVAS to perform at its best because it is the ultimate arbiter and game-changer. Election riggers and identity thieves use the BVAS as an albatross, so those using a false identity should stay away from polling stations.
The majority of the sensitive materials needed to conduct national elections, including ballot papers and result sheets, have been printed and delivered by the commission. The Central Bank of Nigeria has received these items, which are awaiting delivery to the commission’s various local government offices. The non-sensitive materials are currently being batched in accordance with the Registration Areas after the commission has nearly completed delivery. The commission is pleased with the initial progress of the training of various categories of ad hoc staff.
Okoye responded, “Domestic and international observers applied for accreditation using the Commissions Observer and Party Agents Portal,” when asked if INEC had accredited and issued tags to election observers. Domestic observer tags are not distributed in the headquarters by the commission.
Based on their strength, presence, and geographic coverage, the observers are based in particular states and local governments. The observer tags are gathered at the state level, where they will be made available a few days before the election. The tags of polling agents are the same.