Fears over 2023 polls as fire guts 19 INEC offices

AT least, 19 offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission have been gutted by fire in the last two years, findings by The PUNCH have revealed.

A breakdown of the fire incidents showed that the most affected states include Akwa Ibom (four), Abia (three) Anambra (two) and Imo (two).

Other states that witnessed fire incidents between February 2019 and May 2021 are Borno, Ebonyi, Jigawa, Kano, Ondo, Plateau and Rivers. Abuja was also affected.

It was learnt that while 11 offices were burnt down by hoodlums, eight others were gutted by fire under mysterious circumstances or by electrical fault.

In all cases, however, no one has been prosecuted for the vandalism and arson.

Also, the financial implication of such destruction has never been revealed. However, calculations by The PUNCH showed that the destruction could run into billions of naira.

For instance, on February 12, 2019, shortly before the general elections, two containers containing 4,695 smart card readers were destroyed along with other sensitive materials in a mysterious fire at the Anambra State headquarters of INEC.

INEC estimated in its budget that each card reader cost N167, 063 while each memory card cost N6,000.

The PUNCH had estimated that based on INEC’s budget for such sensitive material, the loss incurred was about N847m which also included batteries and SAM (Secure Access Module) cards.

Similarly, on September 10, 2020, just before the Ondo State governorship election, about 5,141 card readers were destroyed in a fire at the state head office of the commission in Akure.

Based on the budget estimates, the Akure fire is expected to have cost INEC nothing less than N900m.

Weeks before the general elections on February 3, 2019, the INEC office in Isiala-Ngwa South Local Government Area of Abia State was burnt down in mysterious circumstances.

In the same state, the commission’s facilities in Arochukwu LGA was vandalised in October 2020 while that of Aba South was completely burnt in December. INEC’s office in Ohafia was set ablaze on May 9, 2021

The office of the commission in the Essien Udim Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom was set ablaze on May 2, 2021. Items destroyed include 345 ballot boxes, 135 voting cubicles, megaphones, water tanks and office furniture. Punch