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From Judex Okoro, Calabar
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said the commission is ready for Februar. 26 Ogoja/Yala Federal Constituency and Akpabuyo State Constituency by-elections in Cross Riveras it has moved sensitives materials to various local government areas invovled in the elections.
Speaking during the movement of sensitive materials from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in Calabar to the local government areas involved in Calabar on Tuesday, National Commissioner of INEC, Mr Festus Okoye, said the whole process has been hitch free.
Okoye stated as at Thursday, February, 24, political parties and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) inspected the electoral materials deposited with the CBN and confirmed their authenticity.
According to him, the materials would be moved to the various LGAs where the by-elections would be taking place and three resident commissioners from Oyo, Edo and Enugu State would supervise each of the three LGAs.
He said: “Each of the resident commissioners will supervise one of the LGAs and they are signing the result sheet for their specific LGA, this is because we want to guarantee the integrity of the result sheets.
“We are going to make sure that we monitor the movement of our result sheets from the polling units up to the registration areas and the LGA levels.
“We have no fears as we have done due diligence in the process and have trained the necessary manpower needed for the election.
“The security agencies are here to escort the materials, to the various venues for the by-elections and political parties, CSOs are free to follow these materials to the last destination,” he said
Speaking further, Okoye said: “For Saturday’ by-elections, only people whose names were on the voter register during the 2019 general election would vote because they were yet to print Permanent Voter Card (PVC) for new registrants.
“The use of incident forms has been banned by INEC as they now use the Bio-Modal Voter Accreditation System (BEVA) that is customised to each polling unit in the by-elections.”
In his remarks, Mr Venatius Ikem Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), noted that so far he was satisfied with the process after the inspection and confirmation of the materials.
Ikem prayed that the by-elections go smoothly to ensure a credible process while hoping that all participants are reasonable enough to conduct themselves properly.
On his part Mr Bassey Mensah, Secretary of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Cross River said he was confident with the ability of INEC to conduct free, fair and credible by-elections.
He said they have done their home work well and expect a positive result.
