Borno REC addressing pressmen in Maiduguri
The Borno Resident Electoral Commissioner of INEC, Alhaji Mohammed Ibrahim Magaji, has urged prospective voters to endeavour to locate thier polling units before the election day.
Magaji made call in Maiduguri while briefing newsmen on level of preparedness for the election in Borno.
Magaji said early location of polling units voters is important in easing confusion on election day.
“If you fail to identify the location of your polling unit, you may go to a wrong location on election day and BVAS will not recognise you, meaning you cant vote.
“It is very important for prospective voters to find out where their polling units are two days to election,” Magaji emphasised.
The said that the commission was good to go and had recieved all necessary materials for the general election including sensitive and non sensitive materials, while all the needed 21,000 ad-hoc staff had been recruited and trained.
“Deployment of the materials to LGAs will starts on Thursday.
“We received 5,071 BVAS and all have been configured with thier respective LGAs and polling units.
“In case of whatever circumstances, we have a reasonable number of BVAS for backup,” Magaji said.
The REC urged prospective voters to try and locate their polling units before election day, pointing out that the measure was necessary to ease confusion on election day.
“If you fail to identify the location of your polling unit, you may go to a wrong location on election day and BVAS will not recognise you, meaning you cant vote.
“It is very important for prospective voters to find out where their polling units are two days to election,” Magaji emphasised.
On security, he said that the military, police and other security agencies would be involved, adding that the commission is engaged in daily security meeting with the relevant agencies to ensure adequate security.
He explained that voters in areas with security challenge and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) like Marte, Guzamala and Abadam LGAs would be voting in super camps.
“You know Borno has experience in handling voting by IDPs as shown in 2019 election,” the REC said.
He also noted that three filling stations had been allocated to supply fuel for the election, while his staff had concluded all formalities with the Central Bank in Maiduguri for the release of needed cash.
On collection of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), he said out of 140,000 old ones, 52,927 had been collected representing 64 per cent success.
“For the last registration exercise for 2021/2022; that is new PVCs, we open with registration of 142,214 PVCs out of which 117,810 were collected representing 82 per cent success.
“There is the third category for those who did tranfer/replacement, lost/ defaced PVCs, the figure is 77,050 PVCs out of which 62,797 where collected representing 81 per cent success.
“So, the total number of PVCs left as balance is 91,584,” the REC said.
He gave the total number of registered voters in Borno as 2.5 million (2.513,281).
