IFES pledges support for INEC

By Odimmegwa Johnpeter/Abuja

The President International Foundation for Electoral Systems IFES, Mr Anthony Banbury has pledged to support the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to ensure a successful conduct of this year’s general election.

Mr Banbury made the pledge in Abuja when he led a delegation to the INEC headquarters.

He said the forthcoming general election in Nigeria was important not only to the African continent but the world at large.

He said his organization had been in partnership with INEC since the return of democracy in 1999.

“IFES is deeply in support of INEC in the fulfillment of their responsibilities. We enjoy the partnership and learn so much from the partnership.”

He explained that their visit was to know the level of preparation of the Commission towards the forthcoming general election in the country next month.

Responding, the INEC Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu said they had implemented twelve out of fourteen activities in the time-table and schedule of activities for the election.

The INEC boss said they extended the collection of Permanent Voters Card, PVCs to enable eligible Nigerians to vote on election day.

He also said that the Commission would conduct a mock accreditation this Saturday to ensure the functionality of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS

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“I want to seize this opportunity to call on all Nigerians whose polling units were to be used for this exercise.

“We have four hundred and thirty six polling units, twelve polling units in each State of the Federation and four in the Federal Capital Territory.

Commission would take care of challenges of BVAS before the commencement of the General Election.

Professor Yakubu also said that the Commission had made tremendous progress in terms of acquisition and delivery of materials for election and that the larger chunk of sensitive and non sensitive materials required for the election are now in various locations.

“We are working with the National Union of Road Transport Workers to make sure that they get logistics right for early deployment of officials and the materials on Election Day.

Professor Yakubu also commended IFES for their support to the Commission over the years.