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Attack on facilities will not stop conduct of 2023 elections – INEC

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The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, said on Monday the recent attacks on the commission’s facilities would stop the conduct of the 2023 general elections.

Yakubu stated this when he received a delegation from Africa Union Special Pre-Electoral Political Mission led by Phumzile Mlambo- Ngcuka in Abuja.

The INEC chief, who acknowledged that some materials for next year’s elections were lost in the attacks, said the commission would replace them ahead of the elections.

Gunmen on Sunday morning set ablaze the commission office in Izzu local government area of Ebonyi State and destroyed 340 ballot boxes, power generators, and an unspecified number of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs).

This came a few weeks after hoodlums attacked the INEC buildings in Ogun and Osun States.

Yakubu said: “In the last three weeks, three of our local government area offices were attacked in three different states of the federation and the last one occurred yesterday in the South-East part of the country.

READ ALSO: Gunmen set INEC office ablaze, destroy 340 ballot boxes, others in Ebonyi

“Although there were no casualties but quite a number of the materials already acquired and delivered for the elections have been lost.

“Now, the good thing is that so far, we can recover from all the losses but it’s a source of concern. This shouldn’t be allowed to continue.

“So, we will continue to engage with the security agencies to make sure that these offices as well as personnel and our facilities are protected ahead of the election.”

The INEC chief stressed that the deployment of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the Results Viewing Portal (IReV) for voter accreditation and uploading of polling unit results in real-time had come to stay.

“We may express some concern about the attack on these facilities but it will never deter the commission from going ahead with the election as scheduled,” he added.

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