The Plateau State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Oliver Tersoo Agundu, has disclosed that the February 3rd re-run election will hold in Plateau North Senatorial District and Jos North/Bassa Federal House of Representatives of Plateau State.
Addressing newsmen on Friday in Jos, Dr. Agundu mentioned that the election will be conducted in six local government areas of the state namely: Bassa, Barakin-Ladi, Jos East, Jos North, Jos South and Riyom, adding that the local governments have 73 registration areas, 2266 polling units with a total of 1,234,761 Registered Voters out of which1167,001 have collected their PVCs.
The INEC Commissioner, who said based on the available data, the election is almost like a Governorship Election in some states, added that the Commission is expected to recruit and deploy over 11,000 Ad-hoc personnel exclusive of the security personnel that will be equally deployed.
He assured that despites the very obvious challenges confronting the Commission, it is ready to proceed with the election as scheduled and eagerly anticipated by many in the affected constituencies.
Dr Agundu declared: “The over three thousand (3000) BVAS expected to be deployed in this coming re-run elections have been fully charged and are currently being purged of the previous data ready for configuration and subsequent deployment. I wish to report that we have planned to deploy BVAS to specific Polling Units, RAs/Wards and LGAs during election with the right quantity of the Back-up ready for any eventuality.
“Let me also reiterate the earlier information that I escalated from our Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the last time we met before the General Elections, precisely that elections are not going to hold in some polling units across the nation for some reasons which resulted in zero registration. I wish to inform you that Plateau North Senatorial District also has a share of such units in 2 LGAs namely Bassa 1 and Jos North 3 totalling 4 Polling Units.
“Once again, all Political Parties, Security Agencies and other stakeholders should take note and act accordingly by not deploying agents or personnel in those places on the 3rd February, 2024.”
He further pointed out the Commission has equally given special consideration to People Living with Disability and other vulnerable groups so that they too can have equal opportunity to participate in this forthcoming re-run election.
Dr Agundu therefore expressed his determinations to conduct a free, fair, transparent and inclusive elections adding that this can only be possible in an atmosphere of peace which can only be maintained and guaranteed by the security agencies and fair reportage by the media