Prof. Gabriel Yomere, INEC’S Resident Electoral Commissioner for Cross River, made the threat during a training in Calabar for the commission’s adhoc personnel engaged for the March 18 elections in Cross River.

Yomere charged the officers to be non-partisan in the discharge of their duties and avoid all forms of criminality.

The REC advised the personnel to take the retraining seriously and avoid all forms of alterations of result sheets.

He informed all adhoc staff and stakeholders that none of them had the powers to influence election adding that the commission would prosecute any personnel who deliberately sought to undermine the credibility of the election.

“For the avoidance of doubt, section 120 of the 2022 Electoral Act states that officers on election duty who without lawful excuse commit or omit to act in breach of official duty for which they have sworn an oath of neutrality will be prosecuted and if convicted shall be imprisoned.

“The term of imprisonment ranges from three years for collation officers and 12 months for presiding officers and other polling level staff, including fine where applicable.

“That section also applies to any person, political parties or their party agents who conspire to make false declaration of results or publish any results other than the one announced by the commission,” he said.

Also the REC appealed to eligible voters to come out en-masse in orderly manner and cast their votes on the Saturday elections.

The retraining of the personnel focused on basic mathematics, tabulation of results received from polling units to state collation centre and the declaration of winners.

Source: NAN

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This was disclosed by Prof. Gabriel Yomere, INEC’S Resident Electoral Commissioner, (REC) for Cross River Sunday night at about 9 p.m. at the state collation centre in Calabar.

According to him, the postponement was due to the fact that they had received the result of only Etung local government area, out of the 18 local governments in the state.

The postponement was the second time on Sunday due to the lack of results coming in from the 18 local governments in the state.

The event which was earlier scheduled for 12 noon was postponed to 7 pm because no results had been received as at the time.

In an interview with journalists at the state collation in Calabar, Yomere said they were supposed to commence the collation by 7 p.m. but at about 9 p.m. only the result from Etung local government was available for announcement.

“We all know that election continued till Sunday in some LGA’s in the state and in many of them especially from the northern part of Cross River collation was still on at the Ward level.

“Also, we all know that from Cross River North to Calabar takes about six to seven hours; by the time they finish the collation at the ward levels there, it would be about 12 midnight and they can only get to Calabar by 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. on February 27.

“Just taking one result and waiting all through the night is not profitable, so, the state collation officer and myself decided to shift the announcement to 10 a.m. on February 27,” he narrated.

While appealing to the various stakeholders to be patient, he said by February 27, they were sure that about 80 per cent of the collated results from the local government would have come in.

INEC Secretariat in Calabar, venue of the collation and announcement of the result of the presidential and National Assembly election, in Cross River, was heavily guarded by armed military and paramilitary officials.

Source: NAN

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