The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says card readers will shutdown automatically by 10:00PM on the day of elections.

INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja during a briefing on the progress made by the commission following the postponement of the general elections.

He said, “They (the card readers) are configured to specific polling units and only open for use at 8:00AM on the Election Day; they will automatically shut down by 10:00PM in order to forestall any illegal use of the card readers before the appointed time for elections.”

Professor Yakubu explained that the card readers were introduced in 2015 to facilitate the accreditation of the electorate using the Permanent Voter Cards (PVC).

Following the postponement of the elections, he said they were reconfigured to the new date of February 23, to make them impossible to be used for ulterior motives.

The INEC boss reminded the audience at the briefing that he had hinted at the success recorded so far in the reconfiguration process.

He said, “Yesterday (Tuesday), I reported 95 per cent completion of the configuration. I am pleased to report that we have now achieved 100 per cent completion of the configuration. We are good to go on this call”.

Professor Yakubu noted that the electoral body has made good progress on logistics, a major reason that led to the postponement of the elections.

He disclosed that the deployment of materials to all states across the country and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) had been completed.

The INEC chairman added that 10 states had already begun the movement of the materials to the local governments while other states would do so and conclude on Thursday.

The states highlighted by Professor Yakubu are Adamawa, Anambra, Benue, Ekiti, Jigawa, Katsina, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, and Taraba.

The presidential and National Assembly elections have been rescheduled to take place on Saturday while the governorship and State House of Assembly would hold on March 9.

•Sourced from a Channels TV report

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