Ahead of the forthcoming general election, the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC has begun training of Supervisory Presiding Officers.
Speaking after he inspected the venue of the training at Government Secondary School GSS Garki – Abuja, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu said the staff to be deployed to the field to conduct the elections are currently undergoing training not nationwide.
According to him, the training is a further reassurance of the readiness of the commission to conduct the elections on February 25 and March 11.
Yakubu stated; “This (training) is the affirmation of the commission’s readiness for the election. Today we have commenced the training for critical election duty staff for the 2023 general election. This weekend, we will train the Supervisory Presiding officers SPOs. In the FCT, we are requiring 282 SPOs but we are training more than that number.
“We have added 70 persons to make it a total number of 352 SPOs in case some of them are unable to make it on election day for one reason or the other, we will take them from the standby.
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“The training in the FCT is also going on the 36 states of the federation. Between Saturday and Sunday, we will complete the training of the SPOs. Then on Tuesday, 14 to Thursday, 16 February, it will be the turn of the Presiding Officers and Assistant Presiding Officers 1,2,3.
“All of them are going to swear to the Oath of Neutrality and oath of allegiance to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. INEC is not a political party and has no candidate for the election.
“Our commitment is to the process and to make sure that the process is what we say it is going to be so that the choice made by Nigerians will determine who becomes whatever after the election.
“The training is further assurance and reassurance of the readiness of the commission to conduct the election on February 25 and March 11.”