The Senate on Tuesday summoned the
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Attahiru
Jega, to appear before it on Wednesday(today).
Jega is expected to brief senators on INEC’s readiness for the forthcoming March 28 and April 11 elections.
The senate, which resumed plenary on
Tuesday after a 33-day break, took the decision following a motion by
its Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba.
Ndoma-Egba, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria,
while presenting the motion asked Jega to come with a card reader for
demonstration before the lawmakers.
The Minority Leader, George Akume, who
contributed to the motion, suggested that the service chiefs should
also be invited since they were blamed by INEC for the postponement of
the polls hitherto scheduled for February 14 and 28.
But Senate President David Mark ruled that summoning the service chiefs was not necessary at the moment.
The Senators, through voice vote,
approved the invitation of Jega, while agreeing that the invitation of
the service chiefs would be determined by Jega’s submission on
Wednesday.
INEC has however said that 75.94 per cent
or 52,275,367 of the 68,833,476 registered voters in the country have
collected their Permanent Voter Cards.
As of February 4 when Jega briefed the Council of State meeting in Abuja, 45, 098, 878 voters had collected their PVCs.
The issue of PVCs was one of the reasons
adduced for the shifting of the elections by several groups, including
some political parties.
The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC
Chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, in an interview with one of our
correspondents, said the commission had concluded the training of all
ad hoc staff for the elections.
“We finished the training of our ad hoc
staff on Thursday,” he said, adding that INEC had taken delivery of
182, 000 tested card readers to be used in 119 polling units across
the country during the elections.
Idowu said, “All the card readers are
already in the possession of the commission. They have been tested and
found worthy. We have 182,000 card readers with us.’’
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