The Chairman of the Cross River State Independent Electoral Commission, Dr Ekong Boco, has disclosed that 10 political parties will participate in Saturday’s local government elections.
Boco stated this on Thursday in Calabar during the commencement of the distribution of sensitive materials to all 18 local government areas in the state.
He, however, dismissed speculations that the materials had already been sent to the council areas.
Boco, who displayed the ballot papers before beginning the distribution, urged political parties to continue supporting the commission until the election is “done and dusted” on Saturday.
“We will be using 3,281 polling units, as approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission, with 9,843 ad-hoc staff, 460 supervisors, 18 returning officers, and 198 collation officers,” he said.
The CROSIEC chairman noted that all ad-hoc staff, including the returning officers and ward collation officers, were trained from 25 October to 27 October and expressed hope that they would conduct themselves well during the exercise.
“We want everyone to see that the process is transparent and that the commission is clean,” he said.
Boco further stated that voting, which will be manual, will commence at 8 am and end at 2 pm.
In his remarks, the State Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council, Effiom Edet, said that the council had observed the commission’s process and expressed confidence that the election would be free, fair, and credible.
“We have not seen any instance where results were pre-signed for any political party, so we want to reassure the public that such actions will not occur,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the state government has declared Friday a public holiday to ensure effective preparation for the polls.
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