2023 elections will hold as scheduled despite insecurities – INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu

The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has said despite the insecurity and other challenges facing the country, the 2023 general elections would be held as scheduled.

Yakubu disclosed this at the public presentation of the 2022-2026 Strategic Plan (SP) and the 2023 Election Project Plan (EPP). According to him, the documents were the third in the series of strategic election plans since deliberate planning of elections started in 2012.

”“We are also aware of the security challenges and their impact on the electoral process. We will continue to engage early and intensely with the security agencies to ensure the safety of our personnel and materials, accredited observers and the media and, above all, the voters. Clearly, these are challenging times but we are determined that the election must hold in 2023.”he said

According to him, the elections would be conducted for 1,491 constituencies nationwide made up of one presidential constituency, 109 senatorial districts, 360 federal constituencies, 28 governorship elections and 993 state constituencies.

He mentioned that the election will involve an estimated one million electoral officials (both permanent and temporary or ad hoc staff) deployed to 176,846 polling units (PUs) in 8,809 Wards and 774 Local Government Areas across the country.

The INEC boss also said that by next week, the commission will conclude the revision of the Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections to comply with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022. He added that work has also commenced on the review of the manuals for the training of election duty personnel.

He said the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise will end on 30th June 2022 and all eligible voters that are yet to register are advised to do so on or before that date if they intend to vote.

He urged Nigerians who registered between June and December 2021 to collect their PVCs in person as no PVCs will be collected by proxy. The INEC boss reiterated that PVCs have no expiry date and assure all registered voters that PVCs issued by INEC remain valid for all elections.