Feb:4,695 card readers destroyed

With less than four days to the presidential election, fire engulfed the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Awka, destroying 4,695 card readers.

INEC confirmed that the incident happened on Tuesday.

Mr Festus Okoye, National Commissioner, Chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee, said that there was no fatality or injury report.

He recalled that similar incidents had occurred in the last 12 days following closely behind those of Isiala Ngwa and Qua’an pan Local Governments offices in Abia and Plateau States respectively.

Okoye said that though the incident no doubt was a setback to the commission’s preparation for the smooth conduct of the elections in Anambra, but immediate measures had been taken to ameliorate the situation.

He said that the measures was the mopping up of some of the spare card readers from other states to deploy to Anambra for smooth conduct of the general elections come Feb. 16 and March 2.

The national commissioner said that with the steps taken so far, the commission remained confident that the election in the state would proceed as scheduled.

Okoye said that the incident had been reported to the police and the Fire Service adding that investigation into the cause had commenced.

He commended the Fire Service for its response which had prevented the spread of the fire and more damage to the commission’s property was averted

The two containers with configured card readers and other sensitive materials for the general elections were gutted by fire at the INEC office in the state.

The fire, which source remained unknown, started around 2.14 pm razing the entire containers before the arrival of Anambra State Fire Service.

The fire started at a portion and was put off only to double and escalate to other places.

Many of the ad-hoc staff of the commission were at the INEC complex to collect their posting letters when the incident.