A section of the Independent National Electoral Commission headquarters was on Friday morning gutted by fire, the cause of which was immediately unknown.

The inferno affected the Election and Party Monitoring Department (EPM), which was completely razed and also affected the media center.

A statement by INEC National Commissioner and Chairman Voters’ Education and Information committee, Mr. Festus Okoye, said the fire started at about 11.30am in an area described as annex, detached from the main building of the Electoral Commission.

According to him, “apart from some office furniture and equipment, nothing sensitive was destroyed. Reeprts of party primaries and conventions are intact. The campaign database is also not affected”

Mr Okoye further noted that the “incident will therefore not affect the administrative or technical operations of the commission in any way”.
He also assured the public that investigation into the cause(s) of the fire incident has commenced.

Speaking to journalists, Mr Okoye said that no critical document was lost in the fire except computers and photocopying machines. He disclosed that important documents relating to political parties were stored in fireproof cabinets.

The main documents relating to our monitoring of political parties are still intact, they have been moved out before the fire. What you have here are just correspondences. But we have lost public properties and our working equipment. We are still trying to find out what happened”

There has been series of fire incidents gutting important government offices in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory in recent time. About a fortnight ago, the office of the Accountant General of the federation was razed by fire and followed earlier this week with the incident at the Corporate Affairs Commission.