Festus Okoye, Commissioner for Information and Voter education with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says they’re still in talks with the Central Bank of Nigeria to host the voting materials.
Speaking in an interview with Channels Television on Monday July 18, Okoye said the commission has never had any issue with the CBN since the partnership started, but owing to “current circumstances,” a fallback would be found.
Okoye explained that they cannot continue to depend on the Nigerian Air Force to handle the logistics of their election materials, said there’s a need for more alternatives at this time.
He said:
“You cannot use the Ekiti governorship election and Osun governorship election as a measure of what will happen in 2023.
That’s because, in the Ekiti governorship election, we had less than one million registered voters. In the Osun governorship election, we were shy of two million registered voters.
“For these 2018 elections, Ekiti and Osun states’ election materials were transported to their respective polling stations by the Nigerian Air Force. The materials are arriving in airports across the state and being transported to offices for distribution before each election.
But in 2023, a total of 95 million ballot papers will be printed for presidential and senatorial elections, with the number decreasing from there. Meanwhile, over 95 million ballots will be printed for the house of representatives election.
Moving our materials to CBN is going to be a logisctic nightmare due to the logistical challenges posed by moving large amounts of material from one location to another. We have not had a chance to sit down with the Central Bank and discuss the situation in full surrounding moving our goods.
“At this time, no decision has been made on how to effectively handle logistics during the elections of 2023. But if we don’t like it at the end of the day, we will try and change our approach.”
When you have to move materials to over 36 states in the federation and to the capital territory, it’s a completely different ball game.
The strategy made in Ekiti and Osun during their general elections won’t be sustainable over time. We must find a feasible route forward that will bring stability to the electoral process.