On Monday, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, disclosed to the National Assembly, that N305 billion will be projected for the 2023 elections. Yakubu Mahmood, who is the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission disclosed this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Appropriations.

INEC states cost for upcoming general election.

According to the INEC Chairman, N100 billion out of N305, has been released. He however stressed that this would not be enough for a proper preparation towards 2023.

According to Senator Jibrin, the 2022 budget proposal of the INEC is captured, “it will be considered and passed same day by the Senate.” The  INEC Chairman also said. “The Commission made a submission through the Executive being part of the Executive body.

“We made a submission for N305 billion for the 2023 general elections in a very comprehensive 22-page document with 260 budget lines. “In submitting the Executive proposal to the National Assembly, N140 million was made available to INEC as a one-line item in the budget.

As usual, we broke it down and submitted same to the committee that oversights INEC in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. “The N140 billion was broken into two; we take it that N40 billion is our regular budget as an agency of government and N100 billion is the first tranche of the 2022 budget.

We have gone ahead to make provisions accordingly. “The N40 billion annual budgets include expenditures for particularly off-season elections. “It may interest the committee to know that we have eight bye-elections pending; three federal constituencies and five state constituencies.

In fact, the last vacancy occurred only last Wednesday following the death of a member representing Jiwa West in Kaduna State,’’ he added.

Prof. Yakubu further stressed on activities that should be put in place before the 2023 general election commences. What we have done is to look at the activities that we have to conduct before the general elections.

There are activities that must be concluded. If you are going to replace some of the critical facilities like ballot boxes and voting cubicles, these things must be done before the elections. Party primaries must be conducted and concluded before the elections and names of candidates submitted, registration of voter’s would have to be concluded before the elections”.

Printing of Permanent Voters Cards would have to be concluded before the elections and some of the critical election technology must be concluded and procured before the elections,’’ Yakubu said.