10 political parties to participate in C’River LG polls – CROSIEC Chairman

Chairman of Cross River Independent Electoral Commission (CROSIEC), Dr Ekong Boco, says 10 political parties will be participating in the Saturday local government elections.

Boco stated this on Thursday in Calabar during the commencement of the distribution of sensitive materials to all the 18 local government areas in the state.

He, however, debunked the speculations that the materials had already been sent to the council areas.

Boco, who showed everyone the ballot papers before the commencement of distribution, urged political parties to keep supporting the commission until the election was ‘done and dusted’ on Saturday.

“We will be using 3,281 polling units, as approved by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 9,843 ad-hoc staff, 460 supervisors, 18 returning officers and 198 collation officers,” he said.

The CROSIEC chairman said that all the ad-hoc staff were trained from Oct. 25 to Oct. 27, including the returning officers and ward collation officers. He expressed the hope that they would conduct themselves well during the exercise.

“We want everyone to see that the process is transparent and the commission is clean,” he said.

Boco further stated that the voting, which would be manual, would commence by 8 a.m. and end by 2 p.m.

In his remarks, the State Chairman of Inter party Advisory Council (IPAC), Mr Effiom Edet, said that the council had observed the process by the commission, expressing the confidence that the election would be free, fair and credible.

“We have not noticed in anyway where results were signed for any political party and so we want to let the people know that something like that cannot happen,” he said.

Friday has been declared public holiday by the state government to ensure effective preparation for the polls.

NAN