The Independent National Electoral Commission has said the November 6 Governorship election in Anambra State will be hold as scheduled.
A director in the commission, Mr Chima Duruaku, stated this in a meeting with Media Executives at Western Meloch Hotel, Awka, Anambra State.
He said,” INEC is creation of the law. We do everything according to the law. The law will guide us in the conduct of the Anambra election. If the laws says we will postpone the election,we shall follow the law. But for now we are not thinking of postponing the election. The November 6 date is sacrosanct and we are working towards that. No shift.”
The commission said it had no plans to bring election materials from Owerri, Imo State as earlier announced.
The commission said all the nonsensitive materials for the November 6 poll were already at the 21 local government areas of Anambra State.
INEC had earlier said it would bring nonsensitive materials from its South-East storage house in Owerri, Imo State.
The pronouncement was trailed by criticisms, owing to the position of the Imo State governor, Hope Uzodimma, who had said the All Progressives Congress would capture Anambra State in the poll by “seen and unseen forces”.
But in the workshop in Awka, INEC said nonsensitive materials for the poll were already domiciled in the 21 local government areas of the state while the sensitivity materials would be brought into the state a few days to the poll and stored at the Central Bank in the state.
The commission said 2, 525, 471 voters were eligible to vote in November 6 poll.
INEC said the figure comprised the 77,475 new registrants at the Continuous Voter’s Registration exercise that ended on September 5.
It maintained that the workshop was to inform Anambra people through the media that the INEC was prepared for the November 6.
INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Dr Nkwachukwu Orji, in his opening remarks appealed to the media to be objective and transparent in the reportage of the election.
The REC, who was represented by the State Director, Voter Education and Publicity, Mr Samuel Njmem, said the electoral umpire would be transparent in all its dealings with the media and the electorate during the election.
He said,“The Commission wishes to use this opportunity, once again, to appeal to you to assist in ensuring the transparency of the electoral process through correct reportage of process across the 5, 220 polling units in the state.
