The Edo State resident Electoral Commissioner, Mike Igini has said that a total number of 500 life jackets have been provided by INEC to enable its staff carry out election exercise in the riverine communities of Edo State.
Igini made the disclosure in Benin City in an interview with newsmen.
He regretted the loss of lives of its ad-hoc staff at Ologbo River in Ikpoba- Okha Local Government Area of the state in the last 2012 gubernatorial election in the state.
He however revealed that though INEC did provide life jackets then, the staff did not wear them due to negligence and warned that such laxity would never be condoned from officers on duty.
“Five hundred life jackets have been received to safeguard the lives of staff that would be deployed to the riverine areas. Never again should we lose our staff out of negligence to such an incident”,he said
He also added that the life jackets would be distributed to INEC staff that will be posted to riverine, stressing that adequate security personnel would be attached to them.
He further disclosed that about 2,607 policemen would be deployed for the elections exercise in the state.
Igini who said the commission was fully prepared for the February 14 presidential and national assembly elections and noted that a total of 1,603,370 permanent voter cards have been collected in the state, adding that the non- sensitive materials have already been delivered to various local governments ahead of the elections.
While assuring that the state will in this year record the highest turn out of voters in the history of voting in the state, he however, attributed the challenges of the commission to voters awareness stressing that who will make the registered electorate to fully participate in the election in spite of massive successes recorded by the commission was one of the body major problems.
He appealed to the electorate to make good use of their PVCs as well as the extended period for those that are yet to collect their cards to do so .
