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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) revealed on Monday that 22,643 candidates would contest for 1,504 positions in the forthcoming general elections.
The INEC national Commissioner for North Central, Mallam Mohammed Haruna made the disclosure in Ilorin during an interactive session with traditional rulers in the state ahead of the elections.
He gave the breakdown of number of contestants for various offices as follows:
President – 73
Governorship – 1,158 in 29 states
Senate – 1,886 candidates in 109 senatorial seats
House of Representatives – 4,634 for the 306 reps seats.
State Houses of Assembly – 14,643 candidates for 991 seats
Haruna also explained that elections will hold for the six chairmen and 62 councillors of the Federal Capital Territory Area Councils because the end of their tenures coincided with this year’s general elections.
He said INEC will deploy between 750,000 and one million ad-hoc staff to be sourced mainly from NYSC, federal tertiary institutions, Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
The national commissioner told the royal fathers that INEC is expecting 84,004,084 voters to participate in the general elections.
“The commission has been diligently implementing the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2019 general elections
“We have so far implemented 9 out of the 14 activities. Soon, we shall implement all activities and fulfill the mandate thrust upon us by the Constitution.
“The Commission has made available to each political party a copy of the entire national register of voters.”
He said the Commission had printed and delivered the Permanent Voter Cards to the states for collection by registered voters.
“For this, INEC has specially arranged for those who are yet to collect their cards to do so from January 16 to January 21, at the designated centers in their wards,” he said.
Haruna stressed that INEC will use the Smart Card Readers for the general elections. He added that the Commission had procured additional 27, 327 card readers and enhanced the performance of 164,763 old ones.