The National Electoral Commission, INEC, has stated that ahead of the Edo State gubernatorial election on seventeen political parties for the election have submitted agents for monitoring the polls.
The electoral umpire stated that the 17 political parties have nominated only 44,687 agents. This is against the 80,410 agents required for the elections.
This disclosure was made by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC on Thursday and signed by it’s National Commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun.
He noted that Edo State has 4,519 polling units and 211 collation centres. Which comprise of 192 Ward centres, 18 Local Government centres and the State collation centre in Benin city.
Olumekun noted that a political party fielding candidate in the election is expected to nominate 4,730 agents.
“From the 17 parties participating in the election, the Commission expected a cumulative figure of 80,410 agents. However, only 44,687 were uploaded to the portal. This is made up of 43,043 polling, 1,452 ward, 179 Local Government and 13 State collation agents. Put together, the 17 political parties nominated 55.6% of the expected number of agents.
“Three political parties uploaded the details of their agents for all levels of polling and collation. While one party has no single agent for any level of voting or collation,”
“A review of the data showed that the All Progressives Congress APC, Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Labour Party, New Nigeria Peoples Party NNPP and the Zenith Labour Party ZLP substantially met the nomination requirements,” Olumekun said.
Recall that INEC had since 2020, replaced the manual process for accreditation of observers, media, polling and collation agents. Political parties are required to upload into INEC dedicated portals, required information, including names and photographs of their agents.
Political parties were subsequently required to upload the details of their agents for polling units and collation centres for all elections.
source: Vanguard
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