By Juliet Abirih, Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said, it had engaged the marine police and the Nigerian Navy to escort election personnel and materials moving to the riverine communities through the high seas with gunboats.
This information was disclosed by the Chairman of INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, in Abuja on the sideline of Presidential and National Assembly elections.
Yakubu assured that the commission has made good progress in resolving logistics challenges that led to the postponement of the election by one week.
Adding, ” Election materials will be delivered to polling units, including those in the riverine communities across the country in good time. ”
He asserted that riverine communities like those in Bayelsa State pose special challenges to the commission.
His words : ” Five out of the Local Government Area in Bayelsa State are only accessible by Sea .We have experience ,having previously conducted elections in Bayelsa. I know the considerable distance, for instance ,between Yenagao the capital and Oporoma ,the capital of Southern Ijaw. You spend literally hours on the high seas. ”
He Continued, ” We also appreciate the challenges that security poses ,particularly when you have personnel and materials on high seas. It is for that reason that we have always made arrangements with the Police and sometimes with the Navy and the Army as well as to provide gunboats in addition to the boats that carry our personnel and materials to locations. ”
Prof Yakubu assured, ” Our office in Bayelsa must have finished the batching of materials, deploying to the local government will be today and I have listed ten states that have moved materials to the local government today. Bayelsa is not one of them but I believe at first light tomorrow, they will deploy and the strategy always is to deploy to places where you need some extra time like Oporoma in Southern Ijaw. And why you can count the distance of moving materials by Sea like in Ekeremor, then you can go through the Delta to get to Ekeremor. ”
INEC chairman affirmed that the deployment of voting materials to all the 774 local government areas of the country will be completed on Thursday (Today)
Reacting on possibility of its ICT facilities to be hacked and interfered, he said, ” INEC is not under pressure.Let me state here that most of our ICT facilities will be offline because it’s difficult to attack ICT facilities that are offline. We will continue to strengthen security during this period. ”
He stated categorically, ” We will continue to do all we can in line with the stipulations of the law and due process. “
