Anambra State gubernatorial election will Hold- Yakubu
The Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has reiterated that it would hold the Anambra State gubernatorial election as planned.
He stated this at a meeting in Awka, stressing that the commission is ready to deliver a free and fair election adding that security agencies had put all in place to ensure a peaceful poll.
According to him, “When the commission released the timetable 11months ago, it sounded like the election will never come. But here we are, 11 months have been reduced to four days.
“We reassure all registered voters that the election is going to be free, fair, credible and, upon the assurance of security agencies, peaceful.
“The only outstanding issue that several persons raised concerns about is the availability of PVCs for the new registrants and replacement with matters of transfer.
“All the cards for all new registrants have been printed and delivered to Anambra State and have been distributed to all the 21 Local Government Areas in the state.
“Beyond that, due to the technology we deployed for voter registration, we were able to harvest the telephone numbers as well as email addresses of new registrants. We have contacted all of them.”
On his part, the Commissioner of Police, Echeng Echeng, said, “Assets and personnel have started arriving. We have 85 per cent of them on the ground. We have begun deployment.
“We have enough vehicles, helicopters and marine boats to take care of the waterways, which the Navy will complement.
“For the past one week, police have been on confidence-building patrol of all nooks and crannies of the state. We have had meetings with stakeholders to discuss the way forward, and they have assured us of maximum security.
“We send warning signals to those who want to foment trouble that it is not going to be a tea party for them. Those who attempted to test us will have a good story to tell if they will return to their camps.
“Camps have been identified and operations are ongoing. For those who we would not take out that day, we have plans for them.”
He added, “We intend to have a lockdown to enable us to control access into the state to ensure people don’t come in to foment trouble.
“We think we are good to go. Those who think the election will not hold have been proved othersise. Come November 6, election will hold.”
Meanwhile, the state police command has announced a lockdown of the state from Friday.
