Politics
NO fewer than seven females and 53 males would contest the three senatorial seats in Oyo state in the Feb. 16 polls.
Mr Mutiu Agboke, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Oyo state, made this known on Tuesday while addressing newsmen on its preparedness for the forthcoming general elections.
Agboke also disclosed that 26 females out of 202 candidates would contest for the 14 Federal Constituencies of the state.
”In addition, six females out of 42 candidates will jostle for the governorship seat while 17 political parties fielded females as deputy governorship candidates.
”Regarding the House of Assembly in the state, there are 654 candidates and 49 political parties contesting for the 32 State Constituencies.” he said.
The INEC REC said the commission had trained 351 Supervisory Presiding Officers and another 28,352 ad-hoc staff, which comprised Presiding Officers and Assistant Presiding Officers.
He revealed that an Oath form would be administered on all the categories of ad-hoc staff that were expected to participate in the elections.
On logistic, Agboke stated that about 90 per cent of non-sensitive materials have been received at the state level.
He said that INEC had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with National Union of Road Transport Workers and the National Association of Road Transport Owners to ensure early and prompt arrival of materials and staff at the various polling units on the election days.
Agboke promised to domesticate the MoU at the state level with the aim of achieving the same purpose.
He added that 2,116,229 PVCs have so far been collected while 846,417 PVCs remained unclaimed.
He said that the commission had a total of 7,336 Smart Card Readers (SCRs) available out of which 6,390 would be required to take care of 6,390 polling units in the state.
The Oyo state REC urged owners of unclaimed PVCs to use the few days remaining to collect them in order to enjoy the opportunity of voting. (NAN)
