Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof Mahmood Yakubu says votes will not be counted in polling units where violence is recorded in Saturday’s governorship election in Bayelsa.
Mahmood said this alat a stakeholders meeting in Yenagoa, where he was represented by the INEC National Commissioner supervising Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa and Rivers, Mrs May Agbamuche-Mbu.
He said that INEC would deploy BIVAS to all polling units for the election.
“I want to let you know that our BIVAS have been customized for INEC, so INEC details and the name of the parties are on the BIVAS, so any BIVAS you see without INEC details cannot be from INEC.
“Another thing, we have all the list of the serial number of the BIVAS we are going to use, the result sheets will be sign at the polling units.
“Where there is violence, it will be zero, we will not return to that polling unit to conduct election.
“We have recruited and carefully train all category of ad-hoc staff to be deployed to the field, all non sensitive materials have been distributed to all the eight local government area offices of the state, voter education and sensitization is ongoing,” he said.
He added: “We have made arrangement for the transportation of personnel and materials to ensure that polling unit open on schedule on election day.
“For more effective supervision of the process, we are deploying two National Commissioners, eight resident electoral Commissioners to support our office in Bayelsa, I wish to assure you of our commitment to free, fair and credible election come Saturday.”
