We’re ready for Saturday supplementary election in Rivers – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Thursday said it was 80 per cent ready to conduct supplementary election in four State Assembly Constituencies in Rivers on Saturday.

Mr Edwin Enabor, INEC Head of Voter Education and Publicity in Rivers, expressed the commission’s readiness while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Port Harcourt.

NAN reports that the constituencies are Gokana with 129, 086 registered voters and Opobo/Nkoro with 7,344 registered voters only in the affected polling units.

Others are Ahoada West which has 36,692 registered voters as well as Abua/Odual, with 88,561 registered voters.

Enabor said that the sensitive electoral materials were inspected with the participating party agents at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in Port Harcourt on Wednesday.

He said that distribution of materials to the affected constituencies would commence on Thursday.

According to Enabor, the commission will mainly use its permanent staff and some students of the University of Port Harcourt as ad hoc staff to conduct the exercise.

“So far so good; we are almost at 80 per cent ready. We have done training for the ad hoc staff, particularly the supervisors, while training for Presiding and Assistant Presiding Officers are ongoing.

“We have done the stakeholders meeting. The security committee had met at the local government level where the supplementary election will hold,” he said.

The INEC head of voter education and publicity stated that the commission would make use of results transmitted to its national server and accreditation from the smart card readers.

He urged the electorate in the affected constituencies to be peaceful and allow INEC to conclude the conduct of the election in the state.