Following reports of violence by youths in Rivers state under the sponsorship of some politicians, the Independent National Electoral Committee (INEC) has suspended the ongoing National Assembly election in the state.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Rivers state, Aniedi Ikoiwak, confirmed the cancellation of elections in four different local government area (LGAs) in the state.
The election was scheduled to hold in 23 LGAs, 319 wards and 4,442 polling units of the across the state.
Elections were, however, cancelled in Bonny, Gokana, Abua/Odual and Andoni local government areas of Rivers state.
Aniedi confirmed this while speaking with newsmen at the INEC secretariat in Rivers state.
He acknowledged that widespread irregularity had marred the election and that youths in the areas refused to allow the electoral officers move election materials from the voting centers.
The REC stated that: “Actually we deployed our electoral materials since Thursday and today we have had the experience that most of our materials were not allowed to move from the RAC centres and even when we tried to deploy to the RACs, we were accosted.”
“In the overall, we are hearing reports that elections held. We had a situation where elections were not allowed to hold in some places. We need to let you know that elections has been suspended in 4 local government areas of Andoni, Bonny, Khana and Gokana.”
