The 14 political parties participating in the September 19, 2020 governorship election in Edo State have been presented with soft copies of the voters register, including flash drives, by the State office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
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Presenting the documents on Monday at the INEC office, Sapele Road, Benin City, May Agbamuch-Mbu, the INEC National Commissioner in charge of Edo, Rivers, and Bayelsa States, said the event marked the flag- off of the publication of the voters register in Edo State. According to Agbamuche-Mbu, “Pursuant to section 20 of the electoral Act, 2010 as amended, the commission is mandated to publish the voters register for the conduct of a general election.
“Consequently, the register shall be published in a designated location in all the local government areas, registration areas, and polling units in Edo. It is my profound appeal that you advise your constituents, members and voters, of the need to check their details in the register to know the location of their polling units and come out en masse to vote on September 19.
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“You may recall that the Commission publicly declared on January 7, 2019 that Nigeria has a total of 84, 004, 084 voters. And by virtue of that declaration, the total number of registered voters in Edo as at today is 2,210,534 with 1,159,325 male and 1,051,209 female.”
The INEC Commissioner also stated that as an electoral umpire, INEC had resolved to be professional, independent and impartial, adding that the commission expected the political parties to join hands with it and the security agencies in conducting a truly violent-free election. She explained that the commission had put in place a policy to conduct the election under strict adherence to the NCDC guidelines on COVID-19.
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Also speaking, Edo State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), John Alalibo urged the political parties to always present themselves for INEC programmes when called upon. INEC, he said “is doing well especially as it relates to the innovation introduced to improve our electoral process. All the information we give out here are all in accordance with the electoral law and it is important that we present it to you,” Alalibo said.
According to him, “I can see that 10 of the 14 political parties participating in the governorship election are here. The other four who are not here will have to come to my office to collect their copies.”
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Earlier, the Deputy Director, Software and Training, INEC headquarters, Abuja, Ama Agwu spoke on the new technological innovation to the electoral system. Agwu said the new technologies introduced by the Commission would help improve the electoral process to achieve credibility and transparency in elections.
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He listed the innovation introduced by INEC to include voter authentication system and Bi-modal voter authentication using the smart card readers, and facial-matching software. According to him, the commission had also introduced the INEC results viewing portal (lRev) to improve the openness and credibility of elections. Agwu further explained that the form EC8A filled and signed by the presiding officer would be uploaded to the portal and can be viewed by the public.
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