In preparation for the forthcoming gubernatorial elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission, Lagos state has commenced the distribution of election materials from the central bank of Nigeria to all local governments across the state.

Speaking to the journalists during the distribution exercise, INEC Lagos Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr Olusegun Agbaje noted that the election materials would be moved across the state with the assistance of security officers.

Mr Agbaje noted that the electoral commission is ready to conduct the governorship and the state house of assembly polls which is holding on Saturday, claiming that all challenges the commission encountered in the presidential and national assembly elections have been reviewed.

He noted that the commission had synergised with the security agencies to control the electoral violence that may erupt during the election.”We are here again as the elections for on Saturday is approaching, elections for governorship and states house of assembly the lagos state, we are having about 40 constituencies where we are going to conduct elections for saturday. And now we are here at the Central Bank of Nigeria at Tinubu square Lagos to collect our sensitive materials which should be escorted from here by the security agencies to all the 20 local governments of the state.

Addressing the restriction faced by the Persons With Disabilities on their inability to identify their polling units and their types of disability on EC48 form, the REC said “for the last elections these forms were given out, these forms are also here now this morning. We are going to impress upon our electoral officers and our SPOs to please endeavour that these forms go along with various forms issued to the state . We have 13,355 PUs and we are sure this form will get to them.

“We have appealed to our security agencies, We had meetings of ISIES last week Wednesday, because when our people were going, particularly in Eti-Osa, they were driven back by many hoodlums from here and there and because of that they could not get to their stations on time, but this time around the commissioner of police has assured me that the situation will be better this time around.

“We deployed logistics, it is when INEC fails to deploy that you can call it a problem, but if you deployed logistics and you are not allowed to get to where you are supposed to go, or they got there and they were not allowed to do their work driven out of the place, I don’t think that is INEC problem and that is why we are synergising with the security agencies.

“INEC has its own role that has been carved out, but the other thing outside the area to make sure we do our job well, which is securing the environment and I have told you that last Wednesday the ISIES met in the state to review what ha happened and to also look at the way going forward, we reviewed everything and the security agencies have assured us; the military , the police, the Immigration the Civil Defence, all of them were there and they all assured us that this time around the situation will be better and we are very hopeful.

“There is none of the polling stations you will get to and you will not see about two or three BVAS, because we have a benchmark for each station, which is 1,250 and once you are more than that we give additional BVAS and if they are more than 2000, we give another BVAS, so in some of the areas you are talking about around Kosofe area, we have three BVAS.