By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
Determined to protect the premises of Nigeria’s electoral umpire from frequent arsons, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday took delivery of new fire fighting engines deployed by the Federal Fire Service at the Commission’s headquarters in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja.
Speaking at the official commissioning of the fire trucks, INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu expressed his joy that the Federal Fire Service offered to deploy an additional state-of-the-art fire engine to the INEC headquarters to complement the two existing trucks in the premises of the Commission in Maitama, Abuja.
Said he: “It is my pleasure to welcome you all to this occasion to mark the formal handing over of a new fire engine deployed to the Commission by the Federal Fire Service.
” a member of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES), the Federal Fire Service has been as concerned as other security agencies about the recent attacks on our offices across the country.
” This is particularly so because out of the 42 attacks on our facilities nationwide, 18 incidents resulted from arson and three more by a combination of arson and vandalization.
“It will be recalled that concerned by these incidents, the Commission convened an emergency meeting of ICCES last week at which the security agencies renewed their determination to collaborate more with the Commission to address this challenge beyond the routine protection of INEC assets and the security of its officials, voters, observers, the media, candidates and their agents during elections.
“For its part, the Federal Fire Service offered to deploy additional state-of-the-art fire engine to the INEC headquarters to complement the two existing trucks. At the same time, it directed its State offices to take additional protective measures around other INEC facilities nationwide.
“Today’s inauguration of the new fire engine is another affirmation of the support to the Commission from the Federal Fire Service whose personnel, already deployed permanently to the Commission, will continue to operate and maintain the fire engines and other fire fighting equipment installed by INEC”, Yakubu stated.
He however said, “on behalf of the Commission, I would like to once again express our appreciation to the Federal Fire Service and all other security agencies for the renewed assurances of support”.
Meanwhile, the INEC boss has said
that for the first time in 25 years the Commission will publish a comprehensive list of the new polling units next week.
According to the demonstration of support from the various security agencies especially the Federal Fire Service is coming on the eve of the resumption of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) nationwide in the next three weeks.
“We earlier assured Nigerians that we shall conclude work on the expansion of voter access to polling units and make the new polling units available to citizens ahead of the CVR exercise. I am glad to report that we have accomplished this task for the first time in 25 years. A comprehensive list of the new polling units will be published next week.
“Similarly, details of the locations of the registration centres and the procedure for the commencement of online registration will also be made available after a series of regular consultative meetings with stakeholders next week”, Yakubu confirmed.
