Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, remains undeterred about giving Nigerians free, fair and credible elections come 2023, despite recent attacks on it’s state offices.
In recent weeks, Permanent Voter Cards, voting cubicles, generator sets and other items have been burnt in INEC state offices like those in Ogun, Osun and Ebonyi, by arsonists.
During an on-the-spot assessment of the burnt office in Abeokuta South today, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, promised that the burnt PVC’s in Ogun and four other states would be reprinted in two days.
The INEC boss also announced that efforts were in top gear to replace the materials lost to the inferno.
While describing the arsonists who destroyed the INEC offices as “undemocratic and retrogressive elements,” Yakubu vowed that the electoral umpire would not be intimidated.
He said, “Whatever material we have lost, the commission is making efforts to replace the materials. We lost 65,699 PVCs, we want to assure all those that have not collected their PVCs, who may have been affected, that we are making plans to reprint the PVCs quickly and to bring them back to Abeokuta South for people to collect and vote.
“As soon we get the voter identification numbers to be harvested by the state office, we will reprint, it doesn’t take longer than two days to print 65,000 PVCs, but we have to get the VINs for the cards that were lost so that we can quickly reprint. It doesn’t take longer than two days to reprint those numbers of the PVCs.