With barely two weeks to the general elections, fire has gutted the warehouse of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) located at its Electoral Institute on Abuja Airport road.
The fire incident broke out in the late hours of Saturday, March 14, 2015 and was eventually put out around 2 am on Sunday, March 15, 2015.
While showing some journalists around the affected building, the director of security of INEC, Shettima Ngilladar, said the outbreak was caused by power surge which made the electrical panel to catch fire.
He further state that the incident would not affect the general elections scheduled for Saturday, March 28, 205 as no electoral materials for the 2015 elections was in the warehouse as they have been deployed to states.
He further maintained that no foul play was involved in the inferno.
He said, “These are non-sensitive materials that have been banned in the warehouse. You will see it yourself it is not hidden. It something clear, this banned non sensitive materials have nothing to do with the elections.
“They are old materials in store that has not been evacuated. These are old stock of non sensitive materials, like bags, envelopes, election forms which were used in 2011 elections. They won’t be used for 2015 elections. Everything here is non sensitive. Police on ground and security investigation is on.”
Ngilladar said that he could not predict the amount of money lost to the inferno since they were all in.
The commission’s National Commissioner in charge of electoral logistics, Col. Mohammed Hammanga who was at the institute to inspect the damage expressed happiness that materials affected were old stock.
“We that God it has not gone beyond this. We are happy that it has not destroyed the materials that will be used in the election,” he said.
