A fire incident occurred last Saturday night at one of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) warehouses located at its Electoral Institute along Airport Road in Abuja, razing non-sensitive materials unused for the 2011 elections.
The institute serves as a warehouse and central store for the commission. However, as the Director of INEC’s Voter Education and Publicity, Osaze Uzzi, said: “None of the sensitive electoral materials for the 2015 elections was affected.”
Also, the Electoral Institute’s Director of Security, Shettima Ngiladar, said the fire, which lasted for about four hours before it was put out by the fire fighters, was said to have been caused by a power surge which caused a sudden explosion of an electric panel within one of the warehouses.
The director said the incident cannot affect the preparations for the upcoming elections since the burnt items were non-sensitive materials like bags, forms and envelopes used in the 2011 general election.
“The fire incident started yesterday (Saturday) at about 11p.m. and it took the fire men to put off the fire for about two to three hours. The fire started from the electrical panel in the warehouse It started when the power was restored.
“When the power was restored, there was a very large sound that alerted our men on duty. They  ran there to see what actually happened, when they sighted smoke from the warehouse. They struggled seriously and put in a effort in order to break, and have access to where the fire could be located,” Ngiladar said, while conducting journalists round the incident area on Sunday.
When asked of the possibility of sabotage, the institute’s director of security said: “There is no foul play, it is purely electrical fault from the voltage, because there was no power then. It was only when the power was restored, that the sound came up followed by smoke. On having access to the warehouse, it was directly the panel.”
Ngiladar added: “We lost items but not items that directly have to do with elections and they are non-sensitive materials that have been burnt in the warehouse. These materials, that have been burnt have nothing to do with the election. They are old materials in the store that have not been evacuated.”
Shettima further said there were old materials in the store that had 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. The police are on ground and investigation is on,” he said.
Ruling out political sabotage, he said “Whether it is too long or too early, there is no political motive about it. It is an electrical action.”
Corroborating, the deputy director of electoral logistics at INEC, Ken Ukeagu,
said: “All sensitive materials required for 2015 elections have been moved to the states. Whatever we have here are old stock of the material. You know the normal process of disposing materials take a little while. But these materials here are not useful for 2015 elections. “All the useful sensitive materials have been moved to the states. Even if these were materials that would have been used there is no way it would affect the elections.
“All the materials required for the election have been moved to the states; there is no way anything happening here will affect the elections.”
INEC National Commissioner in charge of electoral logistics,
Col. Mohammed Hammanga (rtd), who was at the institute to inspect the damage, expressed happiness that materials affected were old stock.
“We thank God it did not go beyond this. We are happy that it did not destroy the materials that will be used in the coming elections,” he said.