No fewer than 11 candidates are expected to participate in Saturday’s by-election in Ngor Opkala Constituency of Imo State.
The parties are the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and nine others. Speaker of Imo State House of Assembly declared the Ngor Okpala Constituency seat hitherto occupied by Tochi Okereke vacant, following his alleged inability to attend sittings for over one year without permission.
Briefing journalists yesterday on the state of preparation for the poll, Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the state, Prof. Francis Ezeonu, disclosed that there are 94,060 registered voters in the Constituency; 11 Registration Areas (RA); 148 polling units and 45 voting points.
Ezeonu said about 800 adhoc members of staff have been engaged including other officials, adding that all electoral materials, including the non-sensitive and sensitive materials, have arrived the state.
He stressed that all the non-sensitive materials had been deployed to Ngor Okpala Council. The sensitive materials, the REC disclosed, are in the custody of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), adding that they will be dispatched from Thursday, in accordance with operational procedure.
Ezeonu said polling will commence at 8:30a.m and end at 2:30p.m, noting that all accredited voters with Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) would be allowed to cast their votes.
He assured that the election results would be published, displayed and transmitted electronically using form EC60E and EC8A through INEC’s portal and assured of the security officers’ cooperation before, during and after the election.
