The desire of the opposition political parties in Imo state to see the immediate removal of the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Prof Sylvia Agu for alleged irregularities and complicity in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has met brick wall.
This followed the position of the National Commissioner in charge of South East, Mr Kenneth Ukeagu when he addressed Imo stakeholders’ meeting, Tuesday.
The opposition parties, namely; People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), Action Democratic Party (ADP), and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) had in their separate submissions, queried why the Imo REC had remained in office irrespective of their calls and demonstrations for her removal before the election just like the former Police Commissioner, Mohammed Ahmed Barde.
It was their belief that her removal would ensure neutrality and transparency and were worried that her continued stay in office would jeopardise the electoral process.
But in his response to their questions, the National Commissioner said the commission had not seen any reason to remove her, adding that any time that happened, the commission had the capacity to do the needful.
He maintained that 9 RECs had been deployed to the state, in addition to the Imo REC and assured that with their presence, a free, fair and credible election would be conducted, especially as all political parties would be having their agents in place.
Ukeagu further said that each of the deployed RECs would be taking charge of three local government areas out of the 27 local government areas of the state and would have the capacity to supervise and address any situation that comes their way without fear or favour.
While assuring that collation of results would be done at designated centres, he gave his promise that the access code to the BVAS machine would be made available to the electoral officers to avoid the lapses experienced in the previous elections.
