The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has stated the institution will commence with the gubernatorial election in Ondo state despite the fire outbreak in its office which destroyed more than 5000 voters card.
Spokesman of the Commission Festus Okoye made this known While speaking to newsmen, he said that the inferno would not affect the conduct of the polls.
Mr Okoye stated that card readers would be collected from other states which are not conducting elections.
“This is just one state election. What we are going to do is to mop up smart card readers from other states and use them for the conduct of the election while investigating what happened,” he said.
“The cost of 5,141 smart card readers is so much, but we are not going to dwell on that now.
“What we are going to dwell on is to mop up smart card readers from other states that are not conducting elections and use them to conduct Ondo governorship election.
“We will dwell on other issues regarding the configuration of the card readers.”
Fire Outbreaks at INEC offices prior to elections are becoming a common context In Nigeria, With a similar incident which occurred in 2019 at the INEC office in Plateau State and Abia State where its facilities including card readers were destroyed by fire.
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