2023: After Emefiele Saga, INEC Still Considering If It Will Keep Sensitive Election Materials With CBN

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is yet to take a final decision on the probability or not of keeping sensitive election materials for the 2023 polls with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as it usually does.

This was made known by the INEC commissioner for information and voter education, Festus Okoye.

It will be recalled that the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu had in the wake of the declared interest of the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele in the 2023 presidential race before eventually stepping down, said the electoral body may have to consider alternative options in storing sensitive materials so as not to compromise the process.

However, Okoye said due to the logistics involved in conducting a general election and the volume of materials that have to be moved, INEC is actively weighing its options.

He added during a Sunrise Daily interview session with Channels TV that a final decision on the matter is yet to be taken as the commission is yet to sit down with the CBN to review plans for the 2023 elections.

Okoye disclosed that for the logistics involved in the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) moved the materials to the airport and they were dispatched straight to INEC offices.

He stressed this was possible because they were stand-alone elections with a limited number of voters and the strategy may not work during the 2023 general elections where many states and Abuja will be involved simultaneously.

“You cannot use the Ekiti governorship election and Osun governorship election as a measure of what will happen in 2023,” he said.

“This is because for instance, in the Ekiti governorship election, we had less than a million registered voters. In the Osun governorship election, we were shy of two million registered voters.

“These are stand alone elections. For the Ekiti election, we utilised the service of the Nigerian Air force and they flew the materials into Akure airport. We did the same thing with the Osun election, and we moved the materials to our state offices.

“But for the 2023 general election, we are going to have over 95 million ballot papers printed for the presidential election. Over 95 million will be printed for the senatorial election; over 95 million papers will be printed for the house of representatives election. Then it goes down.

“It’s going to be a huge logistics nightmare. What we intend to do going forward since there are issues with keeping our materials with CBN, we have not had enough opportunity to sit down with the Central Bank to review the entire issue surrounding our moving our material with the Nigerian Air force.

“We are definitely going to do that. If at the end of the day, we are not satisfied with the arrangement then we are going to look for a new logistics pathway of how to manage logistics during the 2023 elections. But no decision has been made.

“When you have to move materials to 36 states of the federation and the capital territory, it’s a completely different ball game.

“What we did in Ekiti and Osun in terms of the general election will not be sustainable. We need to look for a complete logistics pathway of how to deal with this particular problem.”