Akpan Umoh, Uyo
Sen. Ita Enang has urged Akwa Ibom residents to shun violence, remain peaceful and come out en masse to cast their votes in Saturday’s Governorship and State House of Assembly elections.
Enang, who is a political stakeholder in the state and former Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Niger Delta Affairs said this while speaking with newsmen in Uyo on Friday.
He urged the electorate in Akwa Ibom to vote for credible candidates that will superintend the affairs of the state and candidates that will represent them in their various constituencies effectively.
“They should be no violence, they should be no attack on any persons including the electoral umpire, the INEC officials at the polling units, the officials at the collation point, the officials of the government at the different points of voting.
“Please maintain calmness, do as much as you can to ensure that you vote, and don’t employ or apply violence or cohesion.
“In all this, whatever you want to do, please vote in a manner that your conscience tells you, that your life and the life of your children will be better,” Enang said.
Enang urged Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that materials and personnel get to the polling units on time.
He charged INEC to look at registered voters in some units and deployed more Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to speed up accreditation on Saturday.
“INEC should, please go in early, distribute the materials in a manner that will go to the different polling units at the appropriate time, because at the last election, as at 2 pm when the voting was supposed to end, we were just one quarter into voting in my polling unit.
“They should look at the population of the voters in each of the units, and make sure they deploy enough BVAS to speed up accreditation.
“They should also remind their staff, that they should do voting and accreditation at the same time so that you don’t accredit people, and they go and wait, and then, you say voting will start later because, by the time that finishes, the time is gone.
“I pray that we should at this time do our best, to give this election the credibility that it has gained already, and then get more applause for the country,” he said.
He charged security operatives to ensure neutrality in all their elections duty to avoid bringing the name of their profession to disrepute.
Enang commended the security agencies for their performance in the last Feb. 25 presidential and national assembly elections.
“The security agencies have played a very commendable role; they have not descended into the arena of the elections.
“I want to commend them and pray that they should maintain that pedigree so that they will give confidence that the security agencies are not descending into the arena.
Enang commended the President and the Federal Government for all the steps taken so far in ensuring free and fair elections in the country.