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Judex Okoro, Calabar
There are indications that the local government election scheduled for March 28, 2020 may be postponed again due to logistics problem.
Cross River State Independent Electoral Commission (CROSIEC) had put off the council poll two times: in 2017 and February 2020.
Investigations by Daily Sun showed that the commission is at a loss that barely six weeks to the election, the state government is yet to release the amount asked for the conduct of the poll.
According to a source, CROSIEC had sent a budget of N800 million to the governor for the election, but added that the commission lacks the capacity as there are no operation vehicles, stationeries and operational funds to pay staff and ad hoc electoral officers.
The source said: “We just hope that a miracle can happen now. Else, we would postpone the election again. I can confide in you that we had to shift it to March believing that the governor would release funds for the exercise. As we speak. All the six members of the commission have no official vehicles neither have we received operational funds. So, we are not sure about the date.”
But in an interview with newsmen in Calabar, CROSIEC Chairman, Mike Ushie, said the commission is on course and prepared to conduct the election on March 28, adding that the commission has commenced meetings with stakeholders on the way forward.
“We are on course; we had issued a timetable and have been following the items one after the other. We have not skipped anything nor deviated from the timetable. It is an indication that the election would hold and the March 28 date is feasible.
“We have really commenced a lot of activities preparatory to that exercise. We have held meetings with political parties, stakeholders and went ahead to advertise for ad hoc staff, which has ended. We are currently on nominations after which we will be screening the candidates. So, we are on course.
“We have also commenced the procurement of electoral materials and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has approved and issued us voters’ register. CROSIEC does not have its own register. INEC issued us the voters’ register, which is what we are going to use for the election,” Ushie said.
The chairman disclosed that seven political parties, including Peoples Democratic Party, All Progressives Congress, All Progressives Grand Alliance, Labour Party, and New Nigeria Peoples Party, have submitted lists of candidates to the commission.
On the complaints by candidates that fees for nomination forms were too high, Ushie said after meeting with political parties, fees have been reduced from N800,000 to N600,000, for chairmanship position and N370,000 to N270,000 for councillor-ship.
