Forty one political parties had fielded candidates to contest the 2019 governorship election in Borno.
INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Alhaji Muhammad Ibrahim, disclosed this in an interview on Wednesday in Maiduguri.
Ibrahim said that 41 of the over 50 registered political parties had submitted candidates to the commission for the governorship election in the state.
He explained that the parties also submitted 104 senatorial; 244 House of Representatives and 478 State House of Assembly candidates to the commission.
“We have a total of 867 candidates submitted by 41 political parties contesting various elective positions for the 2019 general elections,” he said.
The commissioner also said that the commission had displayed credentials of candidates for the presidential, senatorial and House of Representatives elections, and that arrangements were concluded for similar exercise for the governorship and House of Assembly candidates.
According to him, the commission had also embarked on display of voters’ register in all the Polling Units (PUs) in the 27 local government areas of the state.
He said the exercise was also conducted at Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps for registered voters in Abadam, Guzamala and Marte local government areas.
“The exercise is being conducted simultaneously in 24 local government areas, while similar exercise is ongoing at IDPs camps due to security challenges in the affected three local councils,” Ibrahim said.
He called on the people to collect their Permanent Voter Card (PVC) and preserve it, to enable them to exercise their franchise.
He also called on political parties to support the commission by mobilising people to participate in the exercise.
“Political parties are the bedrock of democracy; without them you can virtually go nowhere in democracy, we need their cooperation, we want them to assist us in mobilising people to come out and collect their PVCs.
“In addition they should operate in a sense that they are playing the game by the rules,” the commissioner added. (NAN)
