No fewer than 1.02 million registered voters are electing chairmen and councillors for the six area councils in the Federal Capital Territory on Saturday, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.
The election is taking place in 562 polling units with 2,207 voting points across the 62 electoral wards in the area councils.
The Independent National Electoral Commission said it has engaged and trained more than 4,000 ad hoc staff to conduct the exercise.
INEC also announced that 44 domestic and foreign observer groups have been screened and approved to monitor the polls.
Some of the groups include Centre for Civic Education, Transition Monitoring Group and Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution.
Meanwhile, the FCT Commissioner of Police, Wilson Inalegwu, has assured of adequate security during the elections.
Inalegwu told NAN that the FCT Police Command has response teams that would be strategically deployed to respond to any emergency that may arise during the election.
The commissioner warned politicians and their supporters that carrying of firearms and dangerous weapons during the poll was a serious offence.
He also warned that there would be no room for snatching of ballot boxes and papers as policemen would be at all the polling units.
On his part, the FCT INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Jacob Jatau, assured all political parties participating in the council elections of fairness.
Jatau told NAN that as an electoral umpire, INEC would give all political parties and their candidates a level playing field.
He said: “We have monitored the campaigns by political parties and we have noticed that elections in the territory have been peaceful in the FCT.
“We expect the political parties to conduct themselves for the elections to be peaceful as it has been.”
Jatau said accreditation and voting during the elections would go on simultaneously with the use of the card reader machines.
Jatau said accreditation and voting began at 8am and end at 4pm.
While calling on FCT residents to conducts themselves well during the election, he said the commission had improved on the use of the card reader in FCT elections.
“On our part we will play according to the rule and we will want the voters to conduct themselves in a peaceful manner,” he promised.
NAN also reports that 14 political parties, including the APC, PDP, APGA and Labour Party, are participating in the election.
NAN.
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