7th March, 2019
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has taken delivery of sensitive materials for the Saturday, March 9 elections in six area councils.
Mr Yahaya Bello, Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), FCT, listed the Area Councils as Abaji, Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) Bwari, Gwagwalada, Kuje and Kwali.
He said that everything was set for the conduct of the election in the FCT on Saturday.
Bello said that though the FCT had no governor but it was conducting elections for the chairmanship and counsellorship positions in the six area councils.
He said that sorting of materials would go on through the night and by morning each Electoral Officer would carry the materials for his or her area councils.
“The officers will further distribute the materials to the Registration Area Centres (RACs) .
“At the RACs, INEC would hold a sensitisation workshop for the ad hoc staff to refresh their memories on the electoral process, especially the usage of the card readers.
“This for us is to avert some of the challenges experienced during the last elections and to conduct smooth and hitch-free polls.
“After the last elections, we did a reappraisal and noted some of the things that went wrong, so we are working to correct them, especially the issues of cancellation of votes.’’
Bello said that steps had been taken to ensure a reduction in the number of canceled votes.
He said that all the funds needed for the elections had also been deployed including transportation fair for the materials.
He encouraged FCT residents to do away with apathy and come out to vote for their choice councilors and chairmen, adding that this election would be better than the previous one.
Bello also promised that the elections would start early without delays and logistics challenges.
He said that FCT has six area councils, 62 wards and 871 polling units and voting points with 1,344,856 registered voters.
Some of the political parties that witnessed the distribution, said they were satisfied with the process
A total of 105 candidates would be contesting for the six chairmanship positions while 701 would seek to occupy the 62 counsellorship seats .
Also, 40 females were in the race for the chairmanship positions, while 88 females were seeking to be elected as counselors.