The Resident Electoral Commissioner in Edo State, Johnson Alalibo, has assured Nigerians that they will be able to access the results of the Edo State Governorship election in good time.

He gave the assurance on Friday in an interview with Channels Television, just hours to the election in the state.

“We are going to snap the unit results and after snapping, it will be sent to the portal where so many Nigerians will view it live, on time, and real-time,” Alalibo explained.

According to him, this process is being facilitated by the Z Pad – a portal created for double authentication of the accreditation process.

“The Z Pad was to be used for two functions,” the REC explained, “one of which was to do double authentication of the accreditation process.”

“It was test run in the state constituency election in Nasarawa State but there were some hitches and we have been advised to test run those hitches before we run it again for this major state governorship election”.

Alalibo, however, noted “we are still maintaining the second flank of the use,” which according to him, is the ability for prompt access to the results.

After weeks of controversial campaigns and turn of events, the election is now set to hold with many hoping for a hitch-free exercise.

However, another issue which some fear may pose a threat to the election is the weather conditions. As with many other parts of the country, Edo State has witnessed heavy rainfalls in the last couple of days.

Asked if the rains will affect movement of materials to Polling Units, Alalibo expresed optimism that the exercise will not be affected as “all the materials were moved yesterday (Thursday) to the LGAs”.

For the COVID-19 guidelines, he explained that all voters must be present at their Polling Units with facemasks while also adhering to the other guidlines such as social distancing – a failure of which they would risk being allowed to vote.

This is the first major election organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission in the COVID-19 era.