Ita-Giwa, others boycott Bakassi polls...Rampant multiple thumbprinting witnessed

Gill-Nsa Abasi, Calabar - 27.01.2008

Despite an interlocutory injunction granted last year by the Federal High Court in Calabar restraining the Cross River State Independent Electoral Commission from conducting elections into Bakassi Local Government areas in the State, the elections went ahead Saturday without any violence but with obvious boycott from some prominent personalities including Senator Florence Ita-Giwa and some past political office holders in the council.

In almost all the polling centres visited, no voter was seen voting, but most of the ballot boxes were filled with ballot papers allegedly stuffed by agents of the electoral commission. In ward 8 for instance, one Effiom Emmanuel who introduced himself as the polling clerk, was seen thumb-printing the ballot papers and stuffing same into an open ballot box.

A full booklet of ballot paper with serial number 0450301-0450400 lying beside the commission’s staff was fully thumb printed upon and Mr. Emmanuel was simply turning it off from the booklet and stuffing same into the open ballot box.