October 19, 2022

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Adamawa says it has taken delivery of 4,104 Bimodal Voter Authentication Systems preparatory to the conduct of 2023 general elections.

Malam Jibril Elyakub, the Administrative Secretary of the commission, disclosed this during an interactive session with journalists in Yola on Wednesday.

He said that the commission would engage no fewer than 10,805 ad-hoc staff for the conduct of the exercise across the state’s 21 local government areas, covering 266 electoral wards.

According to him, the commission has produced 242, 000 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) out of which only 32,000 had been collected by their original owners, stressing that they were not allowing collection by proxy.

He said that the commission would fully engage journalists in the entire electoral process, saying that the media was a critical stakeholder in electoral duties, hence, the need to carry them along.

Earlier, the chairman of the Adamawa State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr Donald Dedan, had solicited the co-operation and the understanding of the commission by involving the media in their activities.

He advised the commission to organise a form of sensitisation meeting for working journalists aimed at exposing them to the nitty-gritty of elections.

He assured the commission that journalists would always adhere to professional ethics in their conduct.

He added that they would be objective, balanced and factual in the discharge of their constitutional responsibilities.

INEC had recently conducted a Northeast zonal capacity building workshop in Adamawa for voter education providers ahead of the 2023 general elections. (NAN)