Edo Guber: Parties Nominate 44,687 Agents – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, said details of only 44,687 out of 80,410 expected party agents for Edo governorship election were submitted on its dedicated portal, by the July 30 deadline.

This is contained in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday, by Sam Olumekun, INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee.

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Olumekun said that the commission met and among other matters, reviewed the preparations for the Edo and Ondo governorship elections.

He recalled that since 2020, INEC replaced the manual process for accreditation of observers, media, polling and collation agents with dedicated portals to which the required information, including photographs, was uploaded.

He recalled that political parties were, subsequently, required to upload the details of their agents for polling units and collation centres for all elections.

Olumekun said that for the Edo Governorship Election, the portal opened on July 17 and will automatically shut down at midnight on July 30.

In Edo, there are 4,519 polling units and 211 collation centres, comprising 192 ward centres, 18 Local Government centres and the State collation centre in Benin.

“A political party fielding a candidate in the election is expected to nominate 4,730 agents.

“From the 17 parties participating in the election, the Commission expected a cumulative figure of 80,410 agents.

“However, only 44,687 were uploaded to the portal made up of 43,043 polling, 1,452 ward, 179 Local Government and 13 State collation agents.

“Put together, the 17 political parties nominated 55.6 percent of the expected number of agents.

“Three political parties uploaded the details of their agents for all levels of polling and collation while one party has no single agent for any level of voting or collation,” Olumekun said.

Based on infographics on the political party polling and collation agents issued by INEC, 43,043 agents were nominated for polling units agents.

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While the APC, PDP and NNPP nominated the highest number of 4,519 agents each, followed by LP and ZLP with 4,518, the APP submitted nine, while the Booth Party (BP) did not submit any agents.

Also, while 13 parties including APC and PDP, submitted one state collation agent each, the ADC, APGA, BP and SDP did not dominate any.

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