By Dayo Johnson
THE Resident Electoral Commissioner REC for Ondo State Olusegun Agbaje said the commission is ready for the conduct of the general elections.

Speaking with South West Voice on the preparedness of the commission, Agbaje said “We have gone very much ahead in the area of getting ready for the commencement of the election which is 28th of this month and 11 of next month.

“I would say that all the materials that we would need for the elections, safe for the sensitive ones that are in the vault of the central bank have been received in the state and we have sent them to the local government areas; the envelops, papers, biro, ballot boxes and cubicles for the elections.

“Preparations have been made for Registration Area Center (RAC) is a place where people are going to be sent to, our electoral officials, electoral materials and security agents are going to keep the night on Friday for the election.

Mr. Olusegun Agbaje

“It is not that on Friday people will be leaving Ilaje or Eseodo for the other side of the water; they must have crossed to the other side on Friday to keep the night at the ward collation centers.

“We want to assure that very early on the morning of election, we are going to get to the polling unit latest by 7:20 or 7;30 so that by 8 am we would be ready for those who are coming for the accreditation. “ We have tested this in Ekiti last year we were able to achieve 93 percent commencement time of 8.am, Osun, we got 96 percent commencement time. We are hoping that this time around, we should be able to do much better in Ondo State.

Various categories

“In the area of training, we have trained our adhoc staff in various categories and we are going to do training for them because it a long time now and some of them must have probably forgotten.

“ We are going to do another round of training for them before we send them to the field for the election.

On his fears or challenges, Agbaje said” I will not say we are encountering challenges now, areas we see that we had challenges in the past which is the reason the commission has created Registration Area Centers (RACs) so that people can sleep there overnight and very early on Saturday morning, and they move to their various polling units. I have told you that Ekiti and Osun showed that we can get it better.

“In the area of security, we have mapped out risk areas in the state based on the experiences we have had in the past.

“The security agencies have also mobilized themselves and they have been having their own trainings and meeting to ensure they can cover all the areas.

“ INEC has also improved in the area of long queue that made people to be agitated, which is why we created voting points and not polling units as I read in the papers last week that INEC has created more polling units in the North.

“They were there in 2006, it is polling point, we wanted to create polling units last year but because of hue and cry from the members of the public, we have to shelve that so that it does not disturb this election. In some areas in Nasarawa, we have areas that have between three and four thousands. That is quite large, so we have to break them into four or five voting points.

“The mother polling unit is there but each of the polling units is attached to it.

“In some areas, we have 1,500, what we do is to divide them into two not more than 750 per polling units.

On the distribution of PVCs, the REC said “We are having problem is the area of PVC because as we speak now, we have given out 1,108, 503 of 74.19 percent out of a total 1,494,169 cards given to us in Ondo State.

“ We still have 385,666 PVCs with us yet to be collected representing about 25.81 percent. We still believe that with the extension granted by the commission on Saturday night which will last till 22nd of this month, we do believe that we should be able to distribute between 77 and 80 percent which I believe is very reasonable for us here in the state.

On the criticism against the use of card readers, Agbaje said “ this is the first time card reader is being used in Nigeria. Many people are not used to it, some people’s  thumb and index fingers are already contaminated. In the area I covered during the mock election, I covered more than 50 percent of the polling units and I think only two complaints emanated.

“People should not have preconceived idea that the thing will not work. We are just testing it. They tried it in Ghana, they had some little measure of difficulty initially, the challenges we had are what we are addressing.

“The commission is of the opinion that having tested it and it was successful; there is no problem with its usage for the general election.

“ Although we brainstormed at the commission and we thought we could have used it for Ekiti and Osun elections, but we discovered that there is no time that people will still not complain.

“There is no time we will not use this thing. Other countries are going for full electronic voting, if we start with this and it improves, then it is our projection that if National Assembly will allow, we will go for electronic voting in subsequent elections.

“As we talk, we have the card readers in the state; we have 3009 polling units, we also have 542 polling points. All these are going to have card readers, we have in all of them, and we also have excess.

“ We are going to keep the excess in the 203 wards so that if there is malfunctioning or any problem among the cards, we can quickly mobilize to the various wards and get other ones for them. Speaking with South West Voice the Police Commissioner Isaac Eke said the state Police Command is ready for the elections

“ We are fully prepared for the general election here in Ondo State as far as the security aspect is concerned

Eke pointed out that “ The command has prepared adequately for the forthcoming election, thank God that the election was shifted and this has given us ample opportunities to improve on the level of preparedness earlier put in place by the command.

“ From the period of primaries and campaigns, the command had been very very prepared.

Prior to that, our men have been undergoing series of training in regards to rules of engagement of their functions, their duties,and their roles during this forthcoming elections. Series of stakeholders meeting have been held severally in the state here including all strata of the command, the traditional rulers, artisans, market women, students, politicians and the media.

“This caught across board and each time we do that they attend massively . We have also created synergy with other security agencies. We have a robust relationships, we have what we called Inter agencies consultative committee which I am the chairman, the INEC chairman is also a co chairman and this embraces all the security agencies in the state.

‘’We rub mind with these sisters agencies, we deliberate on certain limitations that normally occur during elections and also identify some certain flash points that perhaps we are likely to envisage distress and how to deal with such distress the moment they occur.

“There are certain areas that we might think might be vulnerable but on the field we might found out that nothing will happen and there might be certain areas that we might not envisage any problem and we might need to curtail the problems, so we have flash points in all the areas whether they are minor or not and adequate arrangements had been made and how to rise up to the occasion if such situation arises.

“ To show you how prepared we are, about 6,271 policemen that are to be deployed across the state during this election, we also a unit to be deployed for the force headquarters to support the command, another unit will come from the zone to support us.

“ Then the strength will also be drawn from all the sisters agencies because all the polling units across the state will be covered adequately and these people deployed to these polling units are deployed in their names so that if anything happens they should be tied down to give proper account of what happened.

“So we will be ready to protect lives and properties throughout this period, for all Nigerians, the INEC staff, the adhoc staffs including international and local observers. The transportation and protection of INEC materials are also part of our responsibility. In a nutshell, we are adequately prepared for the election. Some of our men are still under training and the training is on going until the last day .

On his advice to politicians , political thugs, and parents and guardians, Eke said. “ it is not business as usual, a lot of political education has been given. On the Issue of thuggery, parents should hold their wards, nobody should   allow himself to be mortgaged or be bought over with money by any politician or use them to go and create violence ,

“If you allow yourself to be caught, the law will take its cause. During the day of election proper, there will be restrictions. People will be confined to their   area of their voting, anybody will not be allow to move around until that law is lifted because there’s a restriction period .

“Everybody has to restrict themselves until the laws expires. If you move from one polling station to another you will be arrested. Politicians too, they have been told that they cannot even be allow to   go with their aides to poling station to vote.

“That is to tell you the level of seriousness of this election. So nobody is above the law. The INEC laws should be obeyed, and   want this election to come and go peacefully. Ondo state has been very peaceful and we pray that the almighty God will help us to ensure that we provide the adequate security that will give everybody a good environment to be able to go and exercise their franchise.