Speaking on the preparedness of the commission during an interview with SaharaReporters in Abuja on Monday, Yakubu said: “The commission is prepared to give Nigerians free, fair, credible and transparent election, and I want to assure Nigerians also of the best election ever.
Professor Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), says the 2019 election will be the country’s best ever.
He also promised Nigerians that the commission will resist every attempt by moneybags to compromise the election.
Speaking on the preparedness of the commission during an interview with SaharaReporters in Abuja on Monday, Yakubu said: “The commission is prepared to give Nigerians free, fair, credible and transparent election, and I want to assure Nigerians also of the best election ever.
“We have taken time to prepare for the 2019 elections. Well ahead of the election, we have our strategic plan, strategic programme of action, and election project plan already discussed at stakeholders’ meeting.”
He identified the size of the ballot paper and ballot boxes as some of the challenges faced by the commission, saying there is an increase in the number of political parties contesting for elections, compared to past elections in the country.
“Well there are challenges obviously but we are addressing them as we go along, one of which is the size of the ballot papers for the 2019 general election.
“As Nigerians know, we now have 68 registered political parties. As of last week, we had 131 fresh applications from associations for registration as political parties. We envisage that by the time we go into the 2019 general election, we may well have as many as 80 political parties contesting, which will be the highest number of political parties contesting in the history of our democracy.”
Speaking on logistic issues faced during the election, the INEC chairman disclosed plans of the commission to a have a major conference on electoral logistics, in Lagos.
“We hope that by the end of this month in Lagos State we are going to have a major conference on electoral logistics; you know one of the major challenge is logistics, the forward logistics on election day and reverse logistic on election day after voting,” he said.