Ekiti state Council of Traditional Rulers, security agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission met on Tuesday over the June 21 governorship election.
The Chairman of the council, Oba Adamo Babalola said the meeting was called to ascertain the level of preparedness of the commission and the security agencies.
The Ekiti Resident Electoral Commissioner, Halilu Pai, said INEC had commenced the distribution of non sensitive materials to all the 16 council areas in the state, adding that sensitive materials would arrive the councils two days to the election.
Pai disclosed that the commission had registered additional 76,000 prospective voters through the continuous voter registration in addition to the 657,000 already captured during the 2011 voter registration.
Dismissing rumour that some politicians were planning to clone the permanent voter cards to perpetuate fraud in the election, Pai said it would be difficult to clone the cards because of the security features embedded on it and the ballot papers.
He appealed to the traditional rulers to prevail on their subjects to ensure peaceful election pledging that INEC would ensure that all votes count.
The Commissioner of Police, Felix Uyanna, said the security operatives had mapped out strategies to ensure that the all the 2,195 polling booths are secured, stressing that no fewer than 12,000 policemen would be deployed in the state to provide security during the election.
“Each polling booth will be manned by three policemen headed by an officer not below a superintendent of police and will be supplemented with other officers from sister security agencies.
“Besides, there will be 200 counter terrorist officers, 2 DGs, AIGs, four sniffer dogs, horses and two aircraft that will be hovering in the sky to monitor.”
Director of State Security Service Samuel Tamino, in his remarks, said the SSS had been providing intelligence reports to both INEC and the police to ensure credible election.
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