Senator Otu: “Government Elections: Security Officers Should Let Voters Find Voting Places”

Senator Bassey Otu has requested that security personnel let voters to find their voting places as the March 18 governorship elections draw near.

He announced this decision while being interviewed for Roadmap 2023, a pre-recorded Channels Television program that spotlights election-related issues and profiles candidates.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for governor in Cross River State, Otu, stated that while guaranteeing security is crucial, getting the right voter turnout is also important.

He clarified that the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) will have the chance to work on fixing the issues discovered in the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections thanks to the one-week postponement of the governorship and state house of assembly elections.

“In my opinion, the security barricades were required to maintain peace. But I believe the staff members who are erecting these bottlenecks must scale back their efforts to ensure that people arrive at their polling place, he said.

“If you look at the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), you can probably tell that a certain individual is going to vote; thus, he or she should be permitted entrance to the voting area so that they can exercise their right to vote.

“I also want to think that they were really harsh and still perhaps out of fear of the unknown. But going forward, their managers/commanders should be able to inform them that if people aren’t allowed to visit their voting places, the real election would be impacted.

The election authority postponed the governorship and assembly elections from their original March 11 date so that INEC would have enough time to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).