The REC advised politicians to dignify the electoral process by shunning violence and other malpractices that question the integrity of the process so that they would be proud to say they have won elections through a fair process.
On the 2019 election, Effanga said: “Rivers State has 2.8 million PVCs so far in terms of voters’ strength up to the end of March this year. Those have also been collected. We have a difference of about 400,000 cards that have not been collected, and these are cards ranged from 2011 up to march of this year.
“Between April and August, people still registered. We have a figure of about 400, 000 who registered within that time, and these are also being processed. By the time we add the ones from April to August when we suspended the registration process, we will then know how many registered voters we have in Rivers State going into the elections.
“But of course this is the figure of registered voters, not of everybody who have collected their PVCs and you also know that not everybody with PVC would turn out to vote on election day.”
Effanga also said the present INEC was taking steps to ensure the integrity of the electoral process and declared that it was no more business as usual.
He said the decision of the commission to suspend the August 18 by-election of Port Harcourt constituency III in the state shocked many stakeholders who had anticipated profiting from the violence that characterised the election.
