By; VITALIS UGOH, Calabar
From Calabar, our state correspondent, Vitalis Ugoh reports that the elections were free, fair in all the 18 local government areas of Cross River State.
The exercise started as early as 8.30 am in some polling booths in Ward 12 in Ekpo Abasi area, while others arrived at 9.15 am to commence the process of voting.
The INEC staff had earlier addressed crowd on what they were supposed to do and directed them to form two or three lines for the voting proper.
One of the significance of the whole exercise was the honour and respect accord elderly men and women, including the handicapped in some polling booths.
They voters queued one after the other in observance of how the BVAs machine is working. It was also observed that in some areas, the network was fast, while in some, it recorded slowly and later captured them to cast their votes.
In Calabar South and Calabar Minicipality, the exercise went smoothly with the presence of security personnel all over the polling booths.
As at 2.30 pm, down one of the local government areas, Yala, in Ukelle, voting was still ongoing as at the time of filing this report.
However, reports from Mkpani in Yakurr local government area said “security personnel picked up a young man alleged to have been parading with a gun in one of the polling booths.”
The two flash points where violence are likely to erupt are Obudu and Akpabuyo local government areas but as at the time of filing this report, no major incidence was heard.
Mainwhile, vehicular movement oder except INEC officials, Election Observes and the Media remains effective.
People were seen trekking towards the location of their polling booths during the exercise.
The turn out was encouraging and peaceful as compared to the 2015 general elections.
Ayade votes, laments late arrival of materials
In a related development, Cross River State governor, Senator Ben Ayade, had expressed sadness over the late arrival of voting materials for Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections.
Ayade who voted at exactly 14.08.pm, at Polling Unit 033, Ipong Ward lamented that his people were at the prospect of being disenfranchised owing to delay in arrival of materials.
“Well I am surprised that the time is already gone past two 0’clock and I have just cast my vote at about 2:08.pm. We didn’t have materials until 1:pm and when the materials did arrive, there were no INEC staff available to attend to voters.”
Ayade said: “worryingly, according to INEC, its Rack Technology System(Rack Tech) is switches off at a certain time in Abuja, what is the possibility that my people will not be disenfranchised. This is a heavily populated area and some people are already getting tired and itching to leave out of frustration. “
He further disclosed that “as a governor and one who is also running for the Senate, if could not vote until it was eight minutes past two, it’s also a big worry for me. Beyond that, I have equally received calls from other Polling units expressing concern about late arrival and non availability of INEC staff.
“What this seems to suggest is that there’s a deliberate manipulation to ensure that the votes from Obudu are lowered, occasioned by the machines either not working or are being shut down. This indeed, is disturbing, to say the least.”
To ensure that no one is disenfranchised, the governor appealed: “I hope INEC will allow every single person who has come here to vote to do so without being institutionally disenfranchised.”
