With the presidential and National Assembly elections holding on Saturday, February 25, 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Akwa Ibom State will today begin the movement of sensitive materials from the Uyo branch of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the 31 local government area offices in the state.
Towards this end, the state resident electoral commissioner (REC) Dr Cyril Omorogbe, led the state chairmen of political parties, officials of the commission and election observers to the CBN vault to ensure all the items were intact.
Omorogbe said, “It became important for leaders of the various political parties and the media to see things for themselves and properly inform the public that the materials are secured, and intact.
“We are here to inspect sensitive materials that were delivered to CBN, to make sure that the bulk of the items are here. The importance of this exercise has to do with transparency.
“We are making sure that the public is aware that one, these materials are secured, and that they’ve not been tampered with. We’ll actually come back again early next week to go through all the items one by one to make sure they are complete.
“At that point, if there is anything that is not here, we can quickly request for them to make sure we get them before Saturday. We’ll also invite the stakeholders to see that there is no hanky-panky in what we do.”
On the absence of some party leaders at the exercise, the REC explained, that all the 18 political parties participating in the coming elections were invited to come and observe the exercise.
“I am here to show the world that the materials are secured. If they decided not to turn up that is not INEC’s business,” Omorogbe said.
