As preparation continues ahead of the 2023 general election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has come out to state the challenges it’s facing as it gets ready for next year’s polls.
Naija News reports that INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, who expressed concerns about the said challenges told the House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Matters about how badly the recent floods in some parts of the state affected the commission.
Yakubu, while defending the budget proposed by the commission in the 2023 Appropriation Bill before the House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Matters disclosed that no fewer than 20 of the commission’s offices across the country were destroyed by the recent floods.
According to him, the development had forced the commission to begin searching for new office spaces in new locations in states affected by the flood.
The INEC chairman explained that for some of the affected offices, repairs and replacements of damaged equipment would bring them back on their feet, while other affected offices need total relocation.
He cited that a request from Jigawa state after the floods was for three new office locations to be sorted.
Yakubu said, “We have office rent and residential rent. So many of our offices were attacked and some actually flooded after the recent floods. We have 20 offices in that situation after the recent floods. In some, we can repair and replace damaged or lost equipment.
“But for others, we just have to look for a facility to rent. From Jigawa, there was a request for us to look for three offices, following the damage caused by flooding of the offices that we occupied.
Meanwhile, the new predicament of the commission follows the destruction caused by EndSARS attacks in the southeast in 2020, and the insurgency in the north.
Yakubu was reported to have however said in May 2021 that the commission was assessing the loss of materials to attacks, with the preliminary assessment indicating that 11 offices, 1,105 ballot boxes, 694 voting cubicles, 429 electric generating sets and 13 utility vehicles, (Toyota Hilux pick-up vans) were destroyed and lost during the attacks.
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