The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has deployed 19 INEC Enrolment Device (IVED) machines to beef up the registration of voters in Kwara.
Alhaji Waheed Ganiyu, the INEC Administrative Secretary in the state, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Thursday in Ilorin that the commission now has 46 IVEDs to serve the 193 wards in the state.
Ganiyi said the additional 19 machines were received on Friday from the INEC national headquarters in Abuja.
He said that the commission was waiting for a directive from the INEC headquarters before deploying the 19 additional machines to local government areas.
According to him, the existing 27 IVED machines were distributed to the 16 local government areas as directed by the national headquarters.
The administrative secretary gave the breakdown of the distribution of the initial 27 IVEDs to the 16 LGAs as: Asa 2, Baruten 2, Edu 1, Ekiti 1, Ifelodun 1, Ilorin East 2, Ilorin South 2 and Ilorin West 3.
Others were Irepodun 1, Isin 1, Kaiama 2, Moro 1, Offa 2, Oke Ero 1, Oyun 1 and Patigi 1, while the INEC state office has two desktops and one IVED.
Ganiyu explained that all the local governments that got two IVEDs initially, would receive one IVED from the 19 additional ones, while those that got one would now receive two IVEDs each.
He added that five local governments of Oke Ero, Oyun, Ekiti, Edu, and Isin got two machines each because of the size of the population.
The administrative secretary said that only Ilorin West did not get from the additional machines because it already has three IVEDs.
“In all now, if you look at it, most of the local governments have three IVEDs.
“The intention of the commission is that once we have full complement like that, then we now mobilise to the field.
“However, before we can mobilise to the field, we have to get directive from INEC headquarters in Abuja;
“So, with this new addition, the REC thinks that since we have a full complement, he now directed the Electoral Officers (EOs) to go to the field.
“Immediately I heard of it, I have to come to the resident commissioner and explain to him that we cannot go to the field until we receive directive from headquarters.
“But unfortunately, one of the EOs had already gone to the field before I could contact all of them to deliver the REC’s message. Immediately he got the information, he went back to the office,” he said.
In his contribution, the REC, Malam Garba Madami, added that another issue affecting the exercise in Kwara was funding.
He added that the Kwara office of the commission has not received any fund, saying “since the beginning of the year, we have not received funding for the exercise”.
He commended the staff of the commission in Kwara for their commitment to the registration exercise.
“Our staff are committed to the registration and they are sacrificing and using their money for the exercise because they know that they would be refunded,” Madami added.
The REC gave the assurance that all the 193 wards in the state would be touched for the purpose of registering voters.
According to him, each local government would have one machine permanently at the INEC office in the local government, while two would be moved around the wards for effective registration.
Madami added that by the time the exercise would end, INEC would have registered more voters and improved on the ranking of Kwara as number 10 in the country. (NAN)
