The Federal Government of Nigeria has announced that the nation’s land borders would be closed ahead of the coming 2023 general election. Movement restrictions would be implied to vehicles inside the country.
The election would take place on the coming Saturday. Saturday would witness the Presidential and National Assembly Elections.
The presidential election has 18 candidates competing testing their luck.
The exemptions would be allowed to officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), electoral observers, ambulances, firefighters, and others on confirmed emergency services.
The Comptroller General of the Immigration Service of Nigeria, Mr. Isah Jere said that all land borders would be effectively closed from midnight on Saturday to midnight on Sunday. He continued that all command comptrollers especially those in the border states were to ensure strict enforcement of the directive.
The country of Nigeria shares its land border with the nations such as Chad, Niger, Cameroon, and Benin Republics.
The vehicular movement would come under a curfew with no transportation after 6 pm on Saturday, The restriction would start from 12 am.
The Federal government has made the order following the advice of Alkali Usman Baba, the Inspector-General of Police.
The police have informed that there would be no movement or escort of VIPs throughout the election period, while State Security outfits are not allowed to take part in the exercise.
The election materials are moved ahead. The nation has prepared for hitch-free polls. The INEC has started to move all sensitive materials for the Saturday election to the 774 local government areas. The election commission fixed the date of Feb 25 for both elections. Post the presidential and national assembly elections the nation is in line for another major election.
The 11th of March has been fixed for the Governorship and State Assembly elections.
The INEC has earlier given out a warning to the politicians of the country to be cautious of social media posts after the competition of the voting process and before the official declaration of the results.
The REC commissioner said that the trend of fake news challenges the efforts of the government and the commission in ensuring free, fair, and credible elections. He instructed them to only follow the results announced by the INEC Returning officers at wards, local governments, and state levels.
The NBC (National Broadcasting Commission) has directed the broadcasting nations in Nigeria to not announce election results until the official declaration of the INEC is out.
Also Read:- Teodoro Nguema Obiang: All About Equatorial Guineas Vice President
Francisca Aiyetan, the Director of NBC said that broadcasters should end all partisan political programs, and all sorts of campaigns by 11:59 pm on Feb 23, 2023.
Dr. Chukwuemeka Chukwu, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Enugu State of INEC has said that the trucking process of lifting the sensitive materials to various council areas was done in a smooth way.
He further said that the sensitive materials being moved included the Bi-Modal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine, the ballot paper, and the result sheets among others.
He continued that once the nation loads sensitive materials the trucks accompanied by security and INEC officials would get the election result sheets from the Enugu branch of the CBN (the Central Bank of Nigeria) before the movement to the council area.
He believes that all the trucks must have got to their respective local government areas, as some reached the council areas before midnight.
From the council area, the buses would take the materials. The poll has already been activated by the INEC staff and security at the Registration Area Centres (RAC).
From the RAC centers the sensitive and nonsensitive materials would move to the various polling units under each RAC before 8 am on Saturday.
