Description

The Cross River State chapter of the Inter-party Advisory Council, IPAC, and the State Government are at loggerheads over the validity or not of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS sent to the State.

IPAC alleged that the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, in the State is working towards swaying the elections towards the party in power, saying that it suspects that the Commission had made the voting machines available to the State Government and it, therefore has been compromised.

In a strongly worded press statement on the 24th of January, 2023, signed by Ntami Esege, State Secretary of IPAC, the group alleged that the INEC REC, Prof. Gabriel Yomere, had played a fast one on them when he agreed to the group inspecting the machines sent to the State, when the group raised fears that agents of the State might have had access to it, only to call a press conference the next day claiming that the machines were intact.

Subsequently, IPAC on the 6th of February, 2023, in a press conference, in Calabar the Cross River State capital, gave the electoral body a 24-hours ultimatum to allow it to inspect the machines.