Kogi State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof James Apam, has warned political parties to not take Independent Electoral Commission for granted.
Apam, gave this warning in Lokoja on Thursday, when political parties failed to attend the various stakeholders meeting INEC planned towards the forthcoming general elections.
He stated that the meeting was planned by INEC to discuss with politicians, security agencies, civil society organisations, the media and other stakeholders.
Apam claimed that in the meetings that were held, politicians and political parties refused to attend.
He further stated that the meeting is aimed at intimating the stakeholders on how leadership would be sought and politics played, just as he asked the political parties to make themselves available towards realising credible elections.
“Our efforts in the issuance of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) has not yielded the desired results as we still have about 209, 257 uncollected Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) in the State as at yesterday.
“As I already mentioned, elections to the office of the President and the National Assembly will be conducted on the 16th February while elections into the State House of Assembly will be conducted on the 2nd March.
“Voting will be done in 3,508 polling units/voting points in 239 registration areas in the State in the forthcoming election.
“We require a total of 15,479 ad-hoc personnel to man the polling units while other categories of staff ranging from supervisory presiding officers, Collation and Returning officers will be trained from the 28th to 31st January this month.
“In Kogi State, we have 73 candidates for the Senate seats, 153 candidates for the House of Representatives and 478 for the State House of Assembly,” Apam added.
