Ondo Guber Poll: INEC deploys 4,002 BVAS, places 812 on stand-by

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says about 4,002 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines have been deployed in Ondo State to make the exercise a success.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Ondo State, Mrs Oluwatoyin Babalola, disclosed the figures in Akure, the state capital, on Friday.

She said the commission had also put an additional 812 BVAS machines on reserve to appropriately respond to any emergency situation where there the deployed machines malfunction.

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Babalola said; “We are ready. We have created enough voter awareness through the multiple channels we deployed for the exercise.

“We have engaged, recruited our ad-hoc staff, SPOs, presiding Officers and Assistant Presiding Officers.”

According to her, as part of efforts to ensure the exercise is also hitch-free, over 30,000 security personnel had been deployed for the election and briefed on the mode of operation.

The REC further said; “The security agencies have given us assurance. We trained them to be professional and be committed to the job they engage in.

“We also taught them our process. You know, when you don’t know someone else’s process, some things you think are not right, some things you think are wrong. So we have trained them, and they have cascaded this training to their commands.”

Also assuring that the electoral umpire has concluded arrangements to activate the Registration Area Centres (RACs) earlier than usual to ensure early deployment of voting materials to the polling units, Mrs Babalola said; “Most vehicles are on their way to the RAC because we are going to activate RACs very early.

“We don’t want to activate RACs in the night so that they would have settled in, and they’ll be ready for the election tomorrow (Saturday).

“Our people are on the field now, and we are just awaiting feedback for them to arrive at their various destinations”.