The Rivers State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Johnson Sinikiem,has assured stakeholders of adequate security and transparent electoral process ahead of the June 20 Rivers South-East Senatorial District by-election.
Mr.Sinikiem, gave the assurance during inspection, distribution and collection of sensitive election materials at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Port Harcourt branch on Thursday June 18.
The REC while addressing party agents, electoral officers and media representatives, said the commission had a joint Inter-Agency Consultative Committee meeting on Election Security (ICCES) on Wednesday 17 June.
According to him, security agencies have assured the commission of adequate deployment across both land and riverine areas within the senatorial district.
“We have received assurances from all the security agencies. They will provide coverage on land and water, especially in riverine local government areas where the polling units seem difficult-to-reach.
“We do not anticipate any major security challenge, but even if any arises, we are confident that it can be effectively managed” he said.
The commissioner noted that all sensitive materials received from the CBN were intact and ready to be distributed to electoral officers in charge of the senatorial district where the election would be taking place.
” The pallets containing the election materials have not been tampered with. I urge all party agents to inspect them properly and raise any concerns if any.
“After this exercise, the materials will be distributed to the seven local government areas participating in the election and subsequently moved to the Registration Area Centres (RACs)” he explained.
The REC urged stakeholders to cooperate with INEC to ensure peaceful and hitch-free electoral process.
Responding to Journalists on concerns about alleged non-availability of result sheets at polling units, the REC dismissed the fears, stating that under his watch, Rivers had not experienced issues relating to missing result sheets during previous elections.
He explained that INEC often handles result sheets carefully to prevent theft or snatching by political thugs.
“The reason result sheets are not openly displayed during distribution is to prevent unauthorised persons from stealing them.
“When elections are concluded at polling units, results will be entered appropriately, and the same procedure will be followed at collation centres in line with electoral guidelines,” he said.
Mr Sinikiem further disclosed that the by-election would be conducted in 1,629 polling units spread across the seven local government areas in Rivers South-East Senatorial District.
He added that a total of 858,573 registered voters were expected to participate in the election and expressed confidence in INEC’s preparedness and urged political parties, candidates and voters to conduct themselves peacefully throughout the electoral process.
Our Correspondent reports that other supervising RECs from Delta, Adamawa and Katsina states are also in Rivers to supervise the election.
