File photo of INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu.
PATRICK ABANG Calabar –
The Chairman of Akpabuyo Local Government Area of Cross River State, Rt. Hon Emmanuel Offiong Bassey has appealed to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deploy more Voter Enrolment Device (VED) in order to enhance the registration of voters in the state.
Hon. Bassey made the appeaI during a courtesy visit to INEC office in Ikot Nakanda, Akpabuyo LGA, to assess how the voters registration exercise was been carried out in the LGA.
He noted that the Akpabuyo LGA only has one VED for the voters registration exercise, which is grossly inadequate to take care of the local government with ten wards
According to the chairman: “The visit to this office today has afforded me the opportunity to see things for my self, and I will take the matter up personally to the State office of INEC to at least plead with them to send additional machines to Akpabuyo so as to get more people registered, especially now that we are entering election period, so that no eligible voter would be disenfranchised”.
He pleaded with the people of the local government who came out in their numbers to register to be patient as they were working to make sure more devices are brought to the area for effective registration exercise.
A woman, identified as, Affiong Okon, told our reporter that she came from a very far distance (about 3km) for voters registration only to meet a very large crowd.
“This because everybody that wants to register in the local government come to the INEC office and there is only one machine to do the capturing, which is making process to be very slow”, she lamented
Speaking with our correspondent, The Assistant Electoral Officer for Akpabuyo LGA, Mr Stanley Ogwa, said that they were still expecting some additional machines to be brought to the local government.
“It was also discovered that only one machine was sent to Akpabuyo since June 2021 and up till today no additional machine has been sent to the local government area”. He said.
