THE Senate has given the Independent National Electoral Commission the nod to transmit the November 6 Anambra State governorship election results electronically.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on INEC, Kabiru Gaya, disclosed this yesterday.
Gaya spoke with journalists after a meeting between the Chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, and the joint National Assembly Committee on INEC and Electoral Matters on the Anambra election.
The senator explained that the electoral umpire could transmit the results to its server as they are announced at polling units just like what it did during the Edo and Ondo states’ governorship elections.
He explained that the commission has assured the National Assembly’s joint panel that it had perfected necessary arrangements to conduct a free and fair poll.
He said, “It is left for INEC to decide whether it will transfer the election results in Anambra or not. They have done that in the previous elections in Edo and Ondo State.
“Even before the INEC started transferring elections results from polling units, Nigerians have been monitoring results of elections the moments they are being announced at polling stations and by 4pm, even before the final results are announced, many Nigerians would have seen them on the internet.
“Nigerians are fully involved in elections.
“The INEC has assured us that it will go ahead with the Anambra election and declare he winner. We expect the people of the state to cooperate fully with the electoral body by being law abiding.
“The only way to achieve free and fair, credible election in Anambra is for everybody to eschew violence.”
The INEC boss had earlier told the panel before the closed session that his commission had moved all non-sensitive materials to all the local government areas of the state.
Yakubu said, “We have recovered from the series of attacks on our facilities and I am happy to say that we have deployed all the non-sensitive materials to all the local government areas.
“We have trained the requisite number of adhoc staff for the election and we have also mobilised members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers for efficient distribution of materials on election day.
“As far as INEC is concerned, we are good to go on November 6, 2021.”
On the distribution of permanent voter cards in Anambra, he said, “We have a little over 81,000 valid registrants.”
He added, “After the suspension of the Continuous Voter Registration in Anambra State, that includes a little over 5,000 that applied for replacement of cards and intra-state and inter-state transfers.
“As we speak, we are batching the cards. They will leave first thing tomorrow (Thursday) morning for Awka and all the new registrants will get their cards before the elections.”
