By Daniel Tyokua
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Malam Muhammad Bello with FCT Independent National Electoral Commission have agreed to do their best for the peaceful conduct of the 2023 elections in the nation’s Capital, Abuja.
This was at the instance of a delegation from the FCT Independent National Electoral Commission led by the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Alhaji Yahaya Bello, when they paid a courtesy visit to the FCTA.
Minister of the FCT, who was represented by the FCTA Permanent Secretary, Mr Olusade Adesola, said that the FCT Administration and the FCT INEC have enjoyed a worthwhile working relationship and thanked the REC for the public acknowledgement of the support the administration had rendered to the Commission.
He thanked the Commission for the preparations made so far for the conduct of the elections, and said the FCT had also made efforts at sensitizing members of the public on the collection of their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs).
“I want to believe that the FCT is among the States with a very low uncollected PVCs, but we still believe that much can be done. We want a situation where hundreds of PVCs will be collected so that, nobody would say it is because I did not get my PVC, that’s why I did not vote.
“That is why we empowered the Special Assistant to the Hon. Minister to start ward to ward sensitization in the FCT to engage the people so that everybody can collect their PVCs and get ready for the election” he added
The Minister also said that remarks from the REC that INEC was fully prepared for the election, lends credence to the commitment of President Muhammadu Buhari that he will bequeath to Nigeria, a very credible and transparent election.
He also commended the FCT INEC for its overall efforts in ensuring the success of the 2023 elections saying “We want to thank you for all the arrangements that have been put in place and more importantly, thank FCT INEC under your watch for giving great support to the National INEC to ensure that the conduct of election in FCT is done with precision”.
On his part, the FCT REC, Yahaya Bello said that the INEC delegation was at the FCTA to acquaint the Minister on the level of preparedness of the FCT INEC for the 2023 elections and also to thank the Minister for the support granted to the Commission so far.
He said “One of the reasons we are here is to express our appreciation and gratitude to the Hon. Minister and the Ministry, especially when we conducted our continuing voters registration exercise. We had received all the cooperation that we needed from the Hon. Minister and the Ministry in the conduct of the exercise, in terms of venue and everything”.
