Sensitive election materials have arrived in Osogbo in preparation for Saturday’s Osun State governorship election. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) plans to recruit ad-hoc personnel from a pool of over 30,000 members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
Security agencies have also intensified their plans for the poll, deploying at least 25,310 personnel from the Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission throughout the state.
Adedayo Oketola, Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, shared that NYSC members would be engaged as part of the preparation for the election slated for August 15. However, he could not specify the number of required ad-hoc personnel.
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Oketola also mentioned that there are 2,339,233 registered voters in Osun State. However, due to an extension in the PVC collection exercise, he did not have updated data on how many voters have collected their Permanent Voter Cards.
He assured that sensitive and non-sensitive materials are already in Osun and that deployment to local government areas and Registration Area Centres will commence on Thursday. For security purposes, the exact arrival time of sensitive materials was not disclosed, though they are currently stored at the Central Bank of Nigeria.
According to Oketola, sensitive materials like ballot papers will be transferred from the CBN to local government offices on Friday. This follows standard procedure, with non-sensitive materials starting to move on Thursday.
Security officers, electoral staff, and vehicles needed for election day will also be organized, ensuring everything is set by Friday when RAC centres open.
