The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has stated that it has not officially released the voter register to the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC).
Dr. Johnson Sinikiem, INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner in Rivers State, clarified this during a media briefing in Port Harcourt on Wednesday.
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Despite RSIEC’s earlier claims, Sinikiem explained that while the state electoral body had made multiple requests for the register, INEC had not handed over the document due to a court order from the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Sinikiem emphasized that INEC is legally responsible for maintaining and providing the voter register before local elections, but compliance is currently stalled by the ongoing legal proceedings.
“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, the RSIEC has written to us about two times for release of the register but we have not released before we received from our headquarters an order from a Federal High Court restraining INEC from releasing the registers. So until now we have not officially handed over the Rivers state voters register to RSIEC, we have not! The ICT department housed the voter register.
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“And the voter register is in a 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 colour 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 documents to them. But they have written.”
