you expressed concern over the low collection of Permanent Voter Cards. Did the situation change before the deadline for PVC collection?

The time has come and gone; the last day for the collection of PVCs was October 9. We identified the number to be 128,000 uncollected PVCs in Kogi State. The commission thought it wise to give more people the opportunity to come forward and collect theirs. The majority of those affected were those who requested for transfer and those who defaced their cards. We have since gone through and I am sad to say that within four weeks, we were not able to distribute more PVCs to people. They (potential voters) didn’t come to collect. Just about 20,000 out of the 128,000 were collected in four weeks.

There have been threats of violence in some parts of the state. Are you concerned about this?

Yes, I am concerned but I cannot just ignore and be oblivious to what is happening around me. However, I know that there are laws directing what the politicians should do and what the electorate should do, and there are also consequences for anyone who runs afoul of the laws. I don’t have the power of arrest; mine is to provide the rule and necessary framework and talk to people as I have been doing on radio, television, and various other means of communication. People must know what the law says, and they should not campaign with masquerades.

For instance, no weapons, no use of thugs, no use of foul language, and every organ of government should be put on alert to enable political parties to embark on a successful campaign or canvass for votes so that we would have a pleasant experience on November 11. But what has been happening and what we have heard is something that is in the domain of the security agencies to handle. I can only point out to them what the politicians are doing and not doing and allow them to take charge from there.

What is the position of the Independent National Electoral Commission on the use of electronic transmission of results on the day of the election?

It baffles me that people are still asking the same question despite the explanation already given. There is no electronic transmission of results; we upload results from polling units after the scores are recorded on form EC8A and BVAS which is used to snap scores of each political party from form EC8A and transmit them through I-REV to the collation centre. That is another level of transparency INEC is trying to introduce. In the past, people were used to results getting mutilated before getting to the collation centres. In this case, the actual result has already been transmitted and is available on the I-REV to aid the collation officer who will have a look at that and compare it with the physical one that will be brought to the collation centre by hand and see if there are discrepancies. He (the collation officer) doesn’t have to collate that result, but if it matches the one transmitted through the I-REV, then it’s okay. So, INEC is not saying there will be the electronic transmission of results, but there will be uploading of results from the polling units to the collation centre.

In the past, there used to be stakeholders’ meetings where various issues bordering on the election would be exhaustively discussed before the election, but that has not happened in this election. Why is it so?

That’s not true. Recently, there was a meeting with civil society organisations; there were also meetings with chief executives of media houses here in Kogi State at the instance of the National Commission for Voters Education together with the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, who were here. We also held stakeholders’ meetings with political parties. I think the last one we held with political parties was on the 12th of this month when we officially handed the voters register to all the registered political parties that are contesting this election. We also used such fora to appeal to politicians to abide by the rules in the aspect of campaigns and rallies. We’ve been holding stakeholders’ meetings with various groups, youths, women, and other groups. So, consultations have been ongoing.

What plans do you have in place for the riverine areas and those areas that may experience flood during the election?

We have made adequate arrangements. Before now, officers from headquarters were here to assess our registration area centres, RAC centres where our materials are going to be kept before the day of the election. We have identified those places where we think flood may affect and have also made alternative arrangements to relocate those centres and polling units to higher grounds where they would be able to cast their votes. For instance, Ganaja Primary School, which is one of our voting centres, was flooded last year and we are envisaging such a scenario this year. We have made alternative arrangements. So, our RAC centre in Ganaja has been relocated to higher ground, and last week, when the Chairmen came here, he was informed. So, we have made arrangements to ensure that no one is denied his or her voting right.

How much assurance have you been able to get from the security agencies for the election?

We have the ICES; that is the Inter Consultative Service on Security. We held one recently; it involves the police, the Commissioner of Police, who is the co-chair. I am the Chairman, and we have the DSS, the Army, Immigration, Civil Defence, the ICPC, EFCC, and all those who are supposed to provide security. We have identified those places likely to pose challenges in terms of security.

The committee in conjunction with other agencies is working towards ensuring that we have adequate security. We have also identified an area like Bagana where we have farmers/herders’ clashes. People no longer live where they used to live. We have made arrangements for their relocation to safer places where they will cast their votes. There are polling units that are affected in Bagana; we have made adequate provisions to ensure that people vote without any fear.

The same thing with those areas such as Kupa, Egon; you have to go through Kwara or Niger states before you can get to these places. We have made adequate arrangements to ensure that even if we can’t move the materials by road, we have alternative arrangements for materials to get there, using helicopters. We are talking to the Air Force to see the possibilities of assisting us with the use of their aircraft to reach those areas. We have also embarked on the training of polling officers domiciled in those areas to reduce the risk of our ad hoc workers having to travel with the attendant risks involved.

One of the problems that normally follows the usage of ad hoc workers is the delay in the payment of their allowances. Has that been taken care of?

For the February election, we in Kogi here made every effort to ensure that everybody who participated was paid. Unfortunately, these days, you have all kinds of bank accounts such as O’pay, Palmpay, Kuda, and so on. They are not recognised by the Central Bank of Nigeria. When money is paid into these accounts, they are rejected. The other aspect is that people use the accounts of their relatives which will not tally with those of the persons who were engaged in the election.

We have to call them back to give us alternative bank accounts. Last week, when we were told that we had not paid 57 ad hoc workers, we went through our records, and we discovered that some of them had been paid through alternative bank details. What we did was ask them to print out their account statements to confirm that they had been paid. But this time around, we will not accept O’pay, and Palmpay, but the real bank accounts.