Connect with us

News

INEC probes Abuja office fire, reveals damages

Published

on

JUST IN: INEC headquarters on fire

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that preliminary investigations into the fire incident at its Abuja office had begun.

The commission said through its National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, that the damages it suffered as a result of the fire incident were very minimal.

Okoye, who spoke to newsmen after inspecting the burnt office on Saturday said the documents lost were “just files and duplicate copies of some correspondences.”

According to him, critical documents relating to the commission’s activities with political parties were not affected.

He said, “The critical documents relating to our activities with political parties were not affected because they had been moved out even before this particular incident.

“So the damage was very minimal and the documents we lost were just files and duplicate copies of some correspondences and so there is no cause for alarm.”

He went further to explain that every national commissioner in INEC has the manifestos, constitution and every other thing relating to political parties.

“I am telling you that most of the documents relating to the monitoring of political parties had already been moved from this office because the director is also relocating to a different office. So, they had been moved out before this fire incident.

“The documents you find here are documents that are just correspondences, but the main documents are properly secured. Almost every document we have in EPM, we also have them also in the Legal Department.

“We don’t have any serious challenge with just what happened. But there has been damage to public property, computers, photocopiers and critical instruments we use to work. But in terms of losing documents, there is no cause for alarm,” he maintained.

On what happened he said, “Some of our critical staff were in the office and noticed that fire started from the office of the Director of Election and Party Monitoring.

“They rushed in and called the Fire Service. Our own internal Fire Service was here, they responded and personnel of the Federal Fire Service also responded and they were able to successfully put off the fire.

READ ALSO: 44 suspected Boko Haram members die in Chadian prison

“You can see that the fire didn’t take place at the INEC Headquarters. The INEC Headquarters is intact, it is just an office adjacent to our Media Centre outside the big INEC Headquarters. We have gone there and we’ve seen what the issues are.

“The personnel of the Federal Fire Service were here, they have done some preliminary investigations.”

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now