By: Felix Ikpotor
Moves by the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, RSIEC, to hold local council polls in Rivers State on Saturday has suffered a setback.
This follows a clarification by
the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that it has not released any voters register to RSIEC.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Rivers State, Dr. Johnson Alalibo Sinikiem, who stated this while briefing journalists in Port Harcourt admitted receiving communications from RSIEC concerning release of the register, but said contrary to claims by RSIEC, it has not released the register.
Sinikiem, who admitted that INEC is mandated by law to provide the voters register to RSIEC before local government elections are conducted, explained that the state INEC office had received two requests from RSIEC for the voter register, but could not comply to the request because of a court order from the Federal High Court, Abuja.
He further clarified that INEC’s ICT department houses the voter register in soft copy and would typically provide certified photocopies to RSIEC, but insisted that no such document has been handed over.
He said: “The tradition of the commission is that before an election for State at the local government the only responsibility that we have is to give them voters register because we are empowered to maintain and keep voters register for the country.
“However, to make it very clear, RSIEC has written to us about two times for release of the register, but we have not released it before we received from our headquarters an order from a Federal High Court restraining INEC from releasing the registers.
“So till now we have not officially handed over the Rivers state voters register to RSIEC. We have not, the ICT department housed the voter register.
“And voters register is in soft copy and it is in two ways, either we give it to them in soft copy, we photocopy it both black and white and coloured then we stamp certified through copy. But we have not given them, there is no register in our office that will show that we have handed over such a document to them. But they have written.”
On the court orders, Sinikiem said that he has received only one court order from the INEC Headquarters in Abuja which is that of the Federal High Court Abuja directing compliance, but he is unaware of a separate state High Court order.
Asked about the delay in issuing the voters register, the Rivers REC attributed it to administrative processes.
“I have one of the Federal High Court from Abuja which was sent to me by my headquarters directing me to comply with the court order.
“I have not seen another court order from the state High Court. Well it is administrative, it is not that we withheld it, but when the RSIEC request, they have to come for the processes, they have not come to conclude the processes before we got the court order. We have not released,” he said.
