By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

Ahead of November 6 governorship election in Anambra State, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced plans to use its zonal stores in Owerri to organize movement of non-sensitive materials to the state.

The National Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, stated this at the third quarterly consultative meeting with the media in Abuja on Wednesday.

He said that the measure was being taken following the destruction of INEC

property in Anambra State by unknown gunmen.

According to him, the commission will employ twenty five thousand ad- hoc staff to conduct the forthcoming election.

“The only foreseeable problem for the Anambra election is that of transportation as the transporters are skeptical about releasing their vehicles for fear of attacks,” Yakubu added.

He however said the commission will continue to partner the media in the best interest of the electoral process, and democracy, hence it has been continuously innovating on how to strengthen the credibility of voter accreditation and result management process during elections in Nigeria.

In his speech, the National President of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Chris Isiguzo, appealed to the National Assembly to revisit their decision on the electronic transmission of election results, saying that the public outcry against the decision shows they acted out of variance to the desires of the electorate.

He wondered why all other processes of the election will be digital while transmission of the results will become manual.

Isiguzo said: “I am disturbed about how the judiciary has continued to meddle with electoral processes in the country.”

On his part, the National Commissioner in charge of electoral operations, Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu said the commission is consulting with security agencies at the local government level to ensure that voters and workers are secured during the election.

He said that the Commission will deploy a new logistics management app that will tract in real time where the materials are at any given time.

Earlier in his speech, the Director ICT, INEC, Engineer Chidi Nwafor, while showcasing how the new bimodal app works, said the technological evolution will solve the problems of the smart card reader as its battery lasts about ten to twelve hours and has a power bank which lasts up to four hours.

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