FCT Council Polls: INEC assures of free, fair election
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured that it will devout its energy to ensure a free, fair, transparent, and inclusive election in the FCT Area Council slated to hold on 12th February 2022.
The INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner in FCT, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, disclosed this when he received the INEC chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu in Abuja during a visit to ascertain the level of preparedness ahead of the election.
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Bello said sequel to the issuance of election notice on 30th March 2021, a series of activities were, and still are being conducted ahead of the election.
He said, “Notably among them are concluded party primaries, publication of a list of candidates, both chairmanship and councillorship.
“CVR exercise was suspended and new PVCs printed, and are presently being collected at Area Council headquarters plus an AMAC sub-office in Area 10.”
Bello said the total number of collected Permanent Voters Card (PVC) as of 24th January 2022 is 103,68 while uncollected is 265,868.
Similarly, he said the Voter Register has been printed and soft copies presented to the political parties.
“Presently the PVC collection is ongoing in all the six INEC Area Council offices. It will end on February 4th, 2022 after the ABIS was conducted, with the total number of registered voters in the FCT standing at 1,373,492 showing a difference of 28,636.
“An analysis of the CVR shows that a total number of 21, 508 males and 21, 478 females were captured. With regards to persons living with disabilities (PWD), statistics showed that 44 albinos were registered,” he said.
In preparation for the FCT Area Council elections, he said funds of varying categories were released to the electoral officers for the hiring of vehicles in preparation of RACs, servicing and fuelling of generating sets among others.
He said, “Distribution of non-sensitive materials to the Area Councils started in September 2021.
Bello further said that on Saturday, 15th January and Sunday, 16th January 2022, he and the administrative secretary went round the Area Councils and were witnesses to items received and batched.
He said as of yesterday, 25th, more than 75 per cent was delivered to Area Councils.
“Also, with the current number of PUs which is 2229 (less zero PUs), 8916 are required and we were able to harvest 10,510.
“In a nutshell, we have available, our required number of Ad-hoc staff plus percentage contingency which will by the grace of God be trained for the conduct of the election,” he said.
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