By Nathaniel Gana
Thursday 8th August 2024
Seventeen political parties participating in the Edo State Governorship election scheduled for 21st September 2024 have collectively uploaded 44,687 agents to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) dedicated portal, which opened on 17th July and shut down at midnight on 30th July.
But the figure represents only 55.6 percent of the 80,410 agents required to cover the State’s 4,519 Polling Units and 211 collation centres, comprising 192 ward centres, 18 local government centres and the State collation centre in Benin city.
Mr Sam Olumekun mni, National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee (IVEC), in a statement released after the Commission’s meeting on 8th August 2024, noted that every political party fielding a candidate in the election was expected to nominate 4,730 agents. However, only three parties uploaded the details of their agents for all levels of polling and collation, while one political party has no single agent for any level of voting or collation.
Mr Olumekun said: “Nigerians may recall that since 2020, the Commission had replaced the manual process for accreditation of observers, media, polling and collation agents with dedicated portals to which the required information, including photographs, is uploaded. Political parties were subsequently required to upload the details of their agents for polling units and collation centres for all elections.
“For the Edo State Governorship Election, the portal opened on 17th July 2024 and automatically shut down at midnight on 30th July 2024 as indicated on item 9 on the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the election released almost a year ago in September 2023.
“In Edo State, there are 4,519 polling units and 211 collation centres, comprising 192 ward centres, 18 Local Government centres and the State collation centre in Benin city. A political party fielding candidate in the election is expected to nominate 4,730 agents.
“From the 17 parties participating in the election, the Commission expected a cumulative figure of 80,410 agents. However, only 44,687 were uploaded to the portal made up of 43,043 polling, 1,452 ward, 179 Local Government and 13 State collation agents. Put together, the 17 political parties nominated 55.6% of the expected number of agents.”
