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By Kingsley Omonobi & Omeiza Ajayi

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has again expressed concerns over the various court orders it has continued to receive, days to the November 11 off-season governorship elections in Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa states.

INEC’s concern came on a day the Chief of Defence Staff, CDS, General Christopher Musa, gave assurance of secured elections in the three states.

According to the commission, the development is capable of jeopardizing its plans for the elections as it has had to continually reprint sensitive election materials which it said are not easily procured off the shelf.

INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, expressed the concerns at the quarterly consultative meeting with political parties at the commission’s headquarters in Anuja yesterday, said:  “On the issue of candidature, the commission is concerned about the spate of recent judgements and orders of court in respect of the nomination, substitution or disqualification of candidates after all the sensitive materials have been printed.

“The reprinting of the materials, in compliance with court orders within a short period of time, is not only expensive but the management of the process very challenging. Although the commission has already published the final list of candidates for the three states, four recent court orders have compelled us to review the list.

‘’These changes have been reflected in the updated list of parties and candidates on our website.  However, this decision is without prejudice to any pending appeal by the affected candidates or their political parties”.

According to him, the commission has delivered all non-sensitive materials for the elections to the three states.

He said the training of various categories of ad hoc staff was ongoing, while INEC had made the soft copies of the complete register of voters available to all political parties participating in the elections.

“At the same time, political parties have uploaded the names of their polling and collation agents to the dedicated web portal.

‘’As I informed Nigerians at the meeting with our Resident Electoral Commissions, RECs, last week, a total of 137,934 agents made up of 130,093 polling and 7,841 collation agents have already been uploaded to the portal.

‘’However, not all the political parties have nominated agents for all the polling units and even the collation centres in the three States. In the next few days, the commission will publish the detailed distribution of agents uploaded by all political parties for public information.

‘’I urge you to consider the submission of names of agents as important as the nomination of candidates for election.

“I am glad to report that the printing of agents’ identity cards will be completed this weekend. This will allow political parties ample time to distribute the cards to their agents. All the identity cards are QR Code-readable to ensure maximum security and to avoid impersonation by unaccredited persons.

“As electioneering campaigns continue to intensify, the commission reiterates its concern about the spate of violence in the three States involving parties and candidates. I wish to remind you as party leaders that free and fair elections are only possible in an atmosphere of peace.”