The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), yesterday announced that the rerun elections into the House of Representatives and House of Assembly seats for Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State will hold on Saturday.
Adewoye said: “I am just one month old in this state. When I received the letter calling for 300 interested youth corps members to come up for training to participate in the conduct of the elections in Etche, being quiet aware of the Memorandum of Understanding between INEC and NYSC, and knowing that I was not a signatory to the agreement, I had the course to approach my national headquarters in Abuja.
“While I did that, I contacted the field officer in Etche where the election is going to hold to get members ready for the training which started on Monday to equip them fir the exercise.
“However, I am standing here today(yesterday), to inform you that NYSC will not take part in the exercise because of the obvious reason of violence in the last elections in the state in which we lost one of our youths.
“I have duly contacted my headquarters and I have been asked to stay action in the matter.”
The State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Elder Aniedi Ikiowak, announced this in a stakeholders meeting organised by the police for security chiefs, politicians and candidates in the elections in Port Harcourt, the state capital yesterday.
Ikiowak said the poll would hold in over 200 voting units across eight registration areas. Election for the House of Representatives will hold in 147 units.The election in the House of Assembly will hold in 74 units in Etche constituency two.
INEC said the exercise would be held in areas where access to the polling units were blocked by suspected thugs during the December 11 rerun.
He noted that card readers would not be used in the exercise.
“The election is very important to INEC, the state and indigenes of the local government for them to have credible
representation in the House of Representatives and the State Assembly.
“The election is going to be held for three major reasons,- areas where INEC staff and materials were not able to access at the last exercise due to blockade mounted by political thugs, hence election was not held there.
“Again, where election materials got to but for certain obvious reasons of violence and disruption, results were not collated and results not declared at the appropriate venue and finally where elections were held but were rejected and cancelled by the Electoral Officer at the ward level because of certain malpractices,” he said.
Sensitive materials are expected from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) today.
The REC appealed to politicians and their supporters to stay clear of the collation centres .
The Acting Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Deputy Commissioner (Operations), Ahmed Magaji, said adequate security would be provided for free, fair and credible polls.
Magaji pledged the neutrality of the Police.
Politicians from the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) traded blames on the cause of election violence.
APC candidate for the House of Representatives Ogbonnaya Wuke and his colleague for the House of Assembly, Golden Chioma, accused the PDP of holding meetings with political thugs to disrupt the process.
The PDP House of Representatives candidate, Chief Jerome Eke, appealed to the police to allow a level-playing field at the polls.
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