THE warehouse of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) at its Electoral
Institute along Airport Road, Abuja was gutted by
fire at the weekend.
But fears that 2015 electoral materials might
have been affected were doused by INEC’s
Director of Voter Education and Publicity Mr. Wole
Osaze Uzzi.
He said: “None of the sensitive electoral materials
for the presidential and National Assembly
elections and the governorship and state
assembly elections was affected.”
The Electoral Institute’s Director of Security,
Shettima Ngiladar, said the fire was caused by an
electric surge.
The director said the incident would not affect
the preparation for the elections since the burnt
items were the non-sensitive materials like bags,
forms and envelopes used in the 2011 general
elections.
“The fire incident started yesterday (Saturday) at
about 11 pm and it took the firemen about two to
three hours to put off the fire,” he said.
Asked whether it was a sabotage, he said: “There
was no foul play”.
Corroborating, the Deputy Director of Electoral
Logistics at INEC, Ken Ukeagu, said: “ All
sensitive materials required for 2015 elections
have been moved to the states. Whatever we
have here are old stocks.
“You know the normal process of disposing
materials take a little while. But these materials
here are not useful for 2015 elections. All the
useful sensitive materials have been moved to the
states. Even if these were materials that would
have been used, there is no way it would affect
the elections.
INEC National Commissioner in charge of
Electoral Logistics Col. Mohammed Hammanga,
who was at the institute to inspect the damage,
expressed happiness that materials affected were
old stock.
“We thank God that it has not gone beyond this.
We are happy that it has not destroyed the
materials that will be used in the election,” he
said.
Source: The nation
Monday, 16 March 2015
9ja News
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