The Independent National Electoral commission(INEC) has stated that despite the fire incident that burned its Card Readers meant for election the October 10 gubernatorial election in Ondo State would still go as planned.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, National Chairman of INEC, said that the Edo and Ondo states’ elections would go as planned.
He said:
“We received the sad news last night of fire incident involving the container housing the Smart Card Readers.”
“Let me give you a little bit of statistics; we require 4,100 Smart Card Readers for the Ondo election and additional 100 for training, so that the adhoc Staff are properly trained using the Smart Card Reader. So we got 1,000 Card Readers from our office in Osun State.
“So, we had 5,100 Smart Card Readers and we were good to go for the Ondo election but, unfortunately, from the reports I’m getting, we lost the 5,100 Smart Card Readers in that container.”
“We have huge capacity in the neighbouring state to get additional Smart Card Readers and I had a discussion with the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Oyo State and we have 700 Smart Card Readers there. So, getting 5,000 Smart Card Readers to support Ondo won’t be an issue at all. This is not a general election that is holding nationwide, it is an off season election,”
He further stated that the fire only affected the container housing the Smart Card Readers, noting that it was the same container that was used in 2015, 2016 and 2019. “So, it is not that we moved the Smart Card Readers to an unsafe place.”
