The commission decided to reopen the offices, following the complaints of people suffering as they tried to do the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in Anambra State has reopened its four local government offices which were earlier closed down at the peak of the rising insecurity in the state.
The commission had earlier shut down its four local government offices in Anambra State including Ayamelum, Nnewi-South, Idemili-North and Ogbaru over consistent attacks, kidnapping and killings by gunmen in the state.
But the Anambra State Public Relations Officer of the commission, Reginald Onyeukwu, told SaharaReporters in a telephone conversation that the four offices were shut down because of insecurity.
He said the commission decided to reopen the offices, following the complaints of people suffering as they tried to do the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise.
However, Onyeukwu said that the commission only hoped in God for security and protection of its staff as they have no weapon or any other means of protecting them.
Meanwhile, he said that the CVR exercise has been going on well across the state including the four reopened local government offices, as there are residents of the state come out en masse daily for the exercise.
SaharaReporters observed that there were long queues of people who went for the CVR at the state headquarters of INEC, while similar scenarios have also been reported in other areas in the state.
One of the residents who identified himself simply as Ken, said they were given numbers, according to which they were attended to. He however complained that the exercise is slow, as he has spent over an 1 hour 13 minutes and it was not yet his turn to be registered.
“In terms of security, God protects his people. We believe that God protects our staff there.
“The place was shut down because of insecurity and in order to save lives, but we later found out that people are suffering because of that, the Resident Electoral Commissioner considered it and said that the best thing is to reopen it.
“So, God is protecting our staff there and there is nothing we can do. We don’t have guns, we don’t have knives to protect people there. Even If you call security personnel, they are not sufficient.
“The exercise is moving smoothly in all our LGAs. There is no problem. There is no bad report,” Onyeukwu said.
On collection of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs), the INEC spokesperson directed people who are yet to collect their PVCs in the state to go to the commission’s offices in their local government areas for the collection, as there are workers to attend to them.