By Ado Hassan in Birnin Kebbi
THE Secretary , Kebbi State Independent Electoral Commission(KESIEC), Yahaya Abubakar Riskuwa has attributed the huge turnout of voters in the ongoing local government election exercise being conducted across the 21 LGs in the state to the active involvement of relevant stakeholders in its pre- election sensitization and awareness programme.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday in Birnin Kebbi, the state capital, Riskuwa explained that it deliberately engaged CSOs, NOA and other social mobilisation organs for intensive sensitisation drive ahead of the polls.
According to the Commission’ Scribe” we mapped out strategic plan engaging the Kebbi Development Forum, KCC among others who carried out door to door sensitisation exercise”,he disclosed.
Riskuwa who further disclosed that the Commission had transparently designed the process in a manner that eligible voters including political parties(opposition) were given level playing ground to participate without any form of intimidation or threat said the Commission had vowed to conduct a free, fair and credible exercise that would come out with an acceptable elections verdict for the people of Kebbi state.
” And therefore , we decided to allow electoral independence from the polling units to the state level. All results must be declared at every level accordingly and in a transparent manner.
” That is why our office is not besieged by crowd. We don’t want to have anything to do with announcing results”, he added.
In the same vein, Riskuwa commended the security agencies for the smooth and peaceful conduct of he exercise even as he disclosed that materials and officials were timely distributed to respective polling units across the 21 councils.
Meanwhile, the exercise was ongoing in anticipation of the start of collating results for announcement