INEC distributes election materials ahead Saturday’s election in Jigawa

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Jigawa says it has begun distribution of sensitive election materials, ahead of the March 18 governorship and house of assembly elections in the state.

Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Prof. Muhammad Bashar, announced this to newsmen shortly after inspecting the distribution exercise on Wednesday in Dutse.

Bashar said that the materials would be deployed in all the 27 local government areas to facilitate early commencement of the elections.

He said that the commission had taken note of the hiccups experienced during the previous election, adding that it had also taken proactive measures to address them in the coming elections.

“We are well prepared and we have started moving election materials.

“The movement of ad-hoc staff will start as early 10 a.m. on Friday. They are expected to move to their respective local government areas. There will also be refresher training at RACs by 4 p.m.

“Immediately after the training, they will start moving to their respective polling units. So there will be an improvement in the next election,” he said.

Also commenting, the National Commissioner in charge of Kano, Katsina and Jigawa, Abdullahi Abdu-Zuru, said that early deployment of materials and ad-hoc staff would enable the electoral body to commence the exercise on time.

“We commenced the movement of materials to LGAs to ensure that they are there in good time so that moving them to the RAC will be done on time.

“More importantly, that will give us the opportunity to ensure that all the materials are available.

“We don’t want a situation where, a day to the election, you realise that one important piece of the materials is missing and that will delay the commencement of the exercise,” Abdu-Zuru said.

He assured that there would no hitches, as experienced in the last presidential and national assembly elections.