The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has said that the attacks launched at its facilities will not affect the credibility of the forthcoming 2023 presidential elections.
The chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, made this revelation while conducting an assessment on the office of the electoral commission in Abeokuta South Local Government Area which was, in recent time, set on fire by some unidentified hoodlums.
The Chairman said that voters in Abeokuta South local government will not be denied of their voting rights in the 2023 general elections.
He emphasized that the electoral body will, before the general elections, reprint and circulate all the 65,699 Permanent Voters Cards, PVC, which were set on fire.
Yakubu said: “The purpose of our visit to this office is to further access the extent of damage, to meet our staff, particularly in the place where they have relocated to in Oke-Ilewo, to boost their morale and to assure the people of Abeokuta South that despite this unfortunate incident, elections will hold in Abeokuta South in 2023.
“Whatever materials we have lost, the commission is making efforts to replace them. We lost 65,699 PVCs. We want to assure all those that have not collected their PVCs and may have been affected by the fire disaster that we are making plans to reprint the PVCs quickly and to bring them back to Abeokuta South for people to collect and vote.”