By Christiana Ekpa
Ahead of the November 11 governorship elections holding in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that political parties are yet to substantially comply by submitting the list of their agents despite this notice and subsequent reminders.
It said it notified all political parties of the opening of its online portal for the upload of the list of polling units and collation centre agents, which commenced on Thursday 24th August 2023.
The Commission noted that thereafter it engaged party representatives on the methodology for a seamless process.
INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun, disclosed this in a statement issued Sunday while giving an update on preparations for governorship elections.
He noted: “However, despite this notice and subsequent reminders, political parties are yet to substantially comply by submitting the list of their agents.
“For Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States, only 55% of the expected total of 189,180 polling unit agents have been uploaded to the designated INEC Portal.
“Specifically, 29,278 out of the expected 40,372 (72.5%) for Bayelsa State; 51,681 out of 85,644 (60.3%) for Imo, and 23,720 out of 63,144 (37.6%) for Kogi State have been uploaded.
“Similarly, only 25.1% of the expected 15,804 Collation Agents in the three States have been uploaded: 1,246 (26.0%) out of 4,806 for Bayelsa; 1,638 (27.3%) out of 5,994 for Imo, and 1,095 (21.9%) out of 5,004 for Kogi State.”
Olumekun reminded political parties that the portal will automatically shut down at 12:00 midnight on Tuesday 10th October, 2023.
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