Cross River:10 Political Parties to Participate in November 2 LG Polls
By Uket Oka, Calabar
Ten political parties would be participating in the Cross River State Local Government Elections slated for Saturday, November 2, 2024.
The Chairman of the Cross River State Independent Electoral Commission (CROSIEC), Dr. Ekong Boco, made this on Thursday during the commencement of distribution of sensitive materials to the 18 Local Government Areas in Calabar, the State capital.
Dr. Boco also stated that the ten political parties have been identified in the ballot papers.
He used the occasion to debunk speculations that the materials had already been sent to the local government areas ahead of time.
The CROSIEC Chairman, who showed the ballot papers before the commencement of distribution, appealed to the political parties to continue in their support to the commission until the election was concluded.
“We will be using 3,281 Polling Units as approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 9,843 ad-hoc staff, 460 supervisors,18 returning officers and 198 collation officers.
“The ad-hoc staff were all trained from 25 to 27 of October, including the Returning and Ward collation officers. I believe they should all conduct themselves well during the elections.
“We want everyone to see that the process is transparent and the commission is clean,” he said.
Dr. Boco further said the voting which would be manual would commence by 8 a.m. and end by 2 p.m.
On his part, the State Chairman of the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Mr Effiom Edet, said they have observed the process by CROSIEC and were confident that the election would be free, fair and credible.
“We have not noticed in anyway where results were signed for any political party and so we want to let the people know that something like that cannot happen,” Edet said.
Meanwhile, the Cross River State Government had declared Thursday, October 31 and Friday November 1, 2024 as public holidays for the citizens to effectively participate in the local government polls.
