INEC Chief Announces Disbursement of Funds.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced on Tuesday that it has received the necessary funds for the upcoming off-cycle gubernatorial election in Edo State.

Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the Chairman of the Commission, made this statement while inspecting the Commission’s facilities in Benin City in preparation for the election, which is scheduled for September 21, 2024.

He revealed that the funds had been received and disbursed to the state and the 18 local government offices prior to the recent increase in fuel prices. Yakubu also expressed his satisfaction with the state of the non-sensitive facilities that are already in place for the election.

“Our visit to Edo State is a routine activity of the Commission on the eve of major off-cycle elections. This is a readiness assessment visit to the state, and the purpose is to visit some of the local government areas.

“We  have visited three local government areas to assess the readiness in terms of the level of preparation, the materials received so far and how they are organising the election in the next 11 days.

“We have already visited two centers to observe a mock accreditation exercise intended to test run the integrity of our systems ahead of the election, both for voter accreditation as well as upload of the results to IREC portal.

“We are satisfied with the level of preparation by the local government offices in the three offices we have visited, namely, Oredo, Egor and Ikpoba/Okha, as well as the two centers we have visited for the mock exercise. I think we are good to go.

“We have observed, and so far, so good in terms of readiness of our local government offices for the election and also in terms of the technology we are deploying for the election”.