ASABA – Mr Moses Ogbe, the Chairman, Delta State Independent Electoral Commission (DSIEC), said the commission has taken delivery of sensitive materials for the Oct. 25 local government elections in the state.
Ogbe said this during an interactive session with members of the Nigeria Union Journalists (NUJ) on Tuesday in Asaba.
He said the Commission was ready to conduct a free and fair election in the state and appealed for the support of journalists to ensure the realisation of the goal.
He added that non-sensitive materials had already been sent to each of the 25 local government council in the state.
He explained that “the sensitive materials are with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and will be sent well ahead of time between now and Saturday to check the syndrome of late arrival of materials to polling stations.’’
Ogbe said the Commission had trained the retuning officers, “who are people of integrity, including those from the academia, clergymen and senior officers still in service to help us give credibility to the elections.’’
The DSIEC boss said security arrangements had been concluded and logistics would soon be released to the police.
He said the logistics would help to mobilise police to various duty posts in order to ensure safety and security of life during the elections.
He, however, said only 10 political parties would be participating in the elections and gave their acronyms to include the Accord Party, APC, SDP, UDP, APGA, Labour Party, UPN, PDP, PDM and UPP.
He thanked the governor for making funds available for the elections and for giving the Commission free hand to run its affairs.
Earlier, DSIEC held a training programme for 14 accredited observers for the exercise also in Asaba.
Ogbe declared that about 70 candidates were contesting the position of local government chairmanship positions in the 25 councils of the state.
“About 1,040 candidates are contesting for the 466 councillor positions in the state and elections are going to take place in all the 3,624 pooling units across the state,’’ he added.
He noted that the training of observers was organised in conjunction with the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD).
He said the training of observers would help to enhance transparency and charged them to report exactly what they had seen and not to be biased because their report would help to build confidence in the electoral system. (NAN)