The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reacted to the fire incident which occurred at its office in Akure, saying it will probe the cause of the fire that ravaged about 5,141 Smart Card Readers loaded in a container.
This was made known by the INEC national commissioner, Barrister Festus Okoye on Thursday night in a statement on the Twitter handle of the commission.
WITHIN NIGERIA had earlier reported that fire gutted the Ondo State Office of the Independent National Electoral Commission on Thursday. This came barely one month to the governorship election in the state.
Okoye, who also witnessed the fire, was in Ondo state in connection with preparations for the Ondo State Governorship election scheduled for 10th October 2020.
He and other local staff of the commission rushed to the office at about 8pm.
The Administrative Secretary of the State, Mr. Popoola and some staff of the Commission were among those who rushed to the office, as firemen battled to snuff off the fire.
According to Okoye, “investigation into the cause of the fire will commence promptly after the fire has been contained.
Okoye however said the fire will not affect the scheduled governorship election.
He said card readers would be mopped up from other states not conducting elections for the Ondo governorship poll.
“The fire Service men are still battling to put it out and we are confident that it would soon be put out.
“This is just one state election. What we are going to do is to mop up smart card readers from other states and use them for the conduct of the election while investigating what happened.
“The cost of 5,141 smart card readers is so much, but we are not going to dwell on that now.
“What we are going to dwell on is to mop up smart card readers from other states that are not conducting elections and use them to conduct Ondo governorship election.
“We will dwell on other issues regarding the configuration of the cards readers.”
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