The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Saturday said it would deploy 3,346 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and 10,269 polling officials in the June 18 governorship election in Ekiti.

Tella Rahmon, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Ekiti State, disclosed this at the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room Dialogue in Abuja.

The session which was organised by the coalition of CSOs, was supported by the United Kingdom Foreign, Common Wealth and Development Office (FCDO) to get an update on the preparation of INEC ahead of the June 18  Ekiti governorship poll .

Mr Rahmon said that the Ekiti governorship election would be conducted in 16 Local Government Areas (LGAs) with 988,923 registered voters.

“We have taken delivery of 3,346 BVAS for the election. All the BVAS have been fully charged with backup power bank with standby generators for the exercise.

“We have conducted mock test  and all the BVAS  worked well and all adhoc staff  have been trained  on how to use the BVAS.The handling of the BVAS have been well understood  by them. 

“Therefore, we are not envisaging any lapses from the use of the technology.’’

According to Mr Rahmon, 10,269 polling officials will be deployed based on the 10,455 polling units in the state.

“The figure is analyzed as follows: 2,455 presiding officers, one to each Polling Unit (PU), 2,455 Assistant Presiding Officer I (APO I), then the APO II is 2455, APO III, 20,455 with the total of 9780 officials.

“This is with the five per cent contingency backup which made it 10,269.

“The other categories of personnel are 245 supervisory presiding officers, alongside this, we have 177 registration area collation officers among others.’’

Mr Rahmon said that all was set for the conduct of the governorship election, adding that the non-sensitive materials were being deployed already, while the sensitive ones would be distributed on  June 16.

(NAN)