By: Vitalis Ugoh, Calabar
Sequel to the local government elections, Cross River State Independent Electoral Commission (CROSIEC) has commenced the distribution of sensitive materials to the 18 local government areas across the state.
The State Chairman of the Commission, Dr Edet Boco, had displayed sensitive materials for inspection by major stakeholders in Calabar.
He said that the commission was fully prepared to conduct free, fair, and credible elections.
According to him, “we are here with the security agencies, IPAC members and of course the press.The process of voting is the same just that we will not make use of BVAS, everything will be done manually. The voting starts by 8 and ends by 2pm but if there are still voters on the queue, it will extend beyond that time”.
“People must trust CROSIEC and have confidence in the process otherwise we will not have the need to do this today. We are doing so that everyone will know that we are transparent and clean. Let everybody go to the polls and express their franchise and the results will come out from there, he said”.
“All the polling units we are going to use are those designated by INEC for conducting elections, the same number of polling units, same number of adhoc staff. 3281 polling units multiplied by 3, then we have 460 supervisors, 18 returning officers and we have 196 ward collation officers”.
“Our ad hoc staff was recruited from the public space, they have been trained and they all have taken an oath of allegiance and secrecy, so we believe that they’ll conduct themselves well”.
Earlier, the state chairman of Action People’s Party, Engr Effiom Okon who also stands as the state chairman of Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) expressed satisfaction and optimism that the election will be free, fair and credible.
