Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has listed conditions for the conclusion of outstanding elections in Rivers State, just as he reinstated the determination of the commission to enforce the establishment of an Electoral Offences Tribunal to prescribe sanctions for electoral offenders.
Speaking in Lagos, yesterday, he also said that 12 million Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs belonging to the country’s 70 million voters had not been collected.
At an interactive session with editors in Lagos, Yakubu, said that commission was ready to embrace technology in its processes, including the incorporation of electronic transmission of results.
Yakubu, who decried the huge outlay on personnel cost during elections, said that 86 percent of election expenditure was mapped out for payment of election allowances to personnel.
He also noted the inevitability of increasing the present 120,000 polling units used in the conduct of elections across the country.
Noting the outstanding elections in Rivers, Imo, Plateau, and Anambra, Yakubu who was flanked by senior officials of the commission, listed the constraints facing the completion of the elections to include judicial restraints and security.
On Rivers State, he said that the commission would need to satisfy itself that a suitable security arrangement had been made to enable it to conclude the outstanding elections
