Fire Destroys INEC Headquarters In Ondo A Month Before Gubernatorial Election

👤 Abdul Tukur, DENISAURUS News

Fire has destroyed the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Akure, the capital of Ondo, days before the Governorship elections are to commence in the state.

DENISAURUS News understands that a large amount of smart card readers, needed in the October 10 election were destroyed in the fire.

Festus Okoye, INEC national commissioner and chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, said that the fire started at about 7.30pm.

Firefighters are still battling the blaze, but this paper understands that up to 5,000 smart card readers have been destroyed.

“The fire Service men are still battling to put it out and we are confident that it would soon be put out,” Mr Okoye has said.

Mr Okoye, who said an investigation into the fire will take place soon, explained that “this is just one state election. What we are going to do is to mop up smart card readers from other states and use them for the conduct of the election while investigating what happened.

“The cost of 5,141 smart card readers is so much, but we are not going to dwell on that now.

“What we are going to dwell on is to mop up smart card readers from other states that are not conducting elections and use them to conduct Ondo governorship election.

“We will dwell on other issues regarding the configuration of the cards readers.”

The Ondo election is a two horse race between the incumbent Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and Eyitayo Jegede, who is a member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

The two candidate contested for the same position in 2016, where Governor Akeredolu received more votes than Barrister Jegede.