Politics
Anambra election ‘very costly’ compared to Ondo, Edo elections — INEC
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed the cost expended in preparing for the Anambra gubernatorial election scheduled for November 6 is more expensive compared to that spent for Ondo and Edo states elections.
This was noted by the electoral body’s commissioner for information and voter education, Festus Okoye, while speaking during an interview on Channels TV.
Explaining why the cost is more, Okoye said; “We are conducting this election in a very unusual circumstance, this is because we had to rebuild our offices in Nnewi North and Idemili north, where our local government offices were burnt.
“We had to replace over 326 generating sets that we mopped up from our local government offices and stored in the headquarters thinking that it would be more secure.
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“We also had to rebuild our stores, where we normally store non-sensitive materials. We had to also replace over 60percent of the non sensitive materials we already deployed to our Akwa office, getting ready for this election.
“We had to repay six utility vehicles that were all burnt, we almost had to rebuild our state office that was also burnt.
“So, in terms of cost, it’s been very very costly and we can’t compare it to Ondo and Edo states elections, because we are in unusual circumstances, we had to do things differently.
“We are hopeful that when we get to Ekiti and Osun governorship elections, things will calm down much better and things will return to its normal trajectory.”
Meanwhile, INEC had earlier vowed the governorship election in Anambra state will be embarrassingly transparent as it has put facilities in place to achieve an all-inclusive electoral process.
