February 25, (THEWILL) – The Independent National Electoral Commission has pledged to ensure the integrity of the by-elections in Cross River state.
The by-elections are scheduled to take place in the Ogoja Yala federal constituency as well as Akpabuyo state constituency elections.
As part of processes to ensure the integrity of the exercise, three resident electoral commissioners have been deployed to the state.
Speaking during the movement of sensitive materials from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in Calabar to the Local Government Areas (LGAs) involved, national commissioner of INEC, Mr Festus Okoye said the whole process has been hitch free.
Okoye stated that as at Thursday, Feb. 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.
“Each of the resident commissioners will supervise one of the LGA 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
He maintained that the use of incident forms has been banned by INEC as they now use the Bi Modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) that is customised to each polling unit in the bye-elections.
Mr Venatius Ikem, chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Cross River expressed his satisfaction with the process after the inspection and confirmation of the materials.
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.
THEWILL Correspondent, Aniekan Bassey has over six years experience that spans across several fields in print journalism including development communication, sexual reproductive and health rights issues, crime, climate change, social justice, business and human interest stories.
