Ahead of the coming nationwide Presidential and National Assembly elections on Saturday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Lagos State has begun distributions of electoral materials to the 20 Local Government Areas (LGAs).

The State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Olusegun Agbaje, who was at the Central Bank of Nigeria office, Tinubu, Lagos to collect the materials, said that all the materials would be distributed on Wednesday to the LGAs where the electoral officers from each council would do the final distributions on election day.

According to him, all the political parties were invited for the distributions which showed that Lagos State had enough materials for the elections, saying: “The symbolic of this exercise today is to tell Nigerians, especially Lagos state residents, that we are ready for the elections on Saturday”.

He revealed that the combined security agents, comprising the police and soldiers, will escort all trucks to various Local Government Areas. We have enough materials. We even have a surplus. We don’t have a problem with ballot papers and other sensitive materials”.

Also speaking on the matter, the newly deployed Commissioner of Police, Lagos Command, CP Idowu Owohunwa, emphasized that guarding the materials to final destinations is one of the police electoral mandates to provide security for the citizens, electoral materials in transit or office, INEC officials and observers till after the election.

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He said, “What we are doing today is to join the INEC team in the distributions of electoral materials to different Local Government Areas.

“We are to provide adequate security; and if I say adequate security, I mean adequate armed security that will follow all the trucks carrying the materials to Local Government Areas.

“At the local government areas, there are other police officers posted to ensure the safety of the materials before and during elections,” he said.

While revealing that agents of political parties who will participate in Saturday’s election were present at the CBN, he stated that at the time of reporting, all things were working according to plans, and there were no security challenges.

Among the parties agents in attendance are, Action Alliance, Action Democratic Party, African Action Congress, All Progressives Congress, Allied Peoples Movement, Labour Party, National Rescue Movement, New Nigeria Peoples Party, Peoples Democratic Party, and Young Progressive Party.