Sensitive election materials have been delivered to Osogbo in anticipation of Saturday’s governorship election in Osun State. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) intends to recruit ad-hoc staff from a group of more than 30,000 members belonging to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
Security agencies have ramped up their efforts for the election, deploying a minimum of 25,310 personnel from the Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission across the state.
Adedayo Oketola, the Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of INEC, announced that NYSC members will be involved in preparing for the election scheduled for August 15. However, he was unable to provide details on how many ad-hoc personnel would be needed.
Oketola noted that Osun State has 2,339,233 registered voters. Nevertheless, he lacked updated information on the number of voters who have collected their Permanent Voter Cards due to an extension in the PVC collection exercise.
He confirmed that both sensitive and non-sensitive materials have arrived in Osun, with deployment to local government areas and Registration Area Centres scheduled to begin on Thursday. To maintain security, the exact time of arrival for the sensitive materials was not revealed; however, they are currently stored at the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Oketola stated that sensitive materials, such as ballot papers, will be relocated from the CBN to local government offices on Friday. This adheres to standard procedures, where non-sensitive materials begin moving on Thursday.
Security personnel, election staff, and necessary vehicles for election day will be coordinated to ensure everything is ready by Friday when the RAC centers open.
