By George Onah
In its determined efforts at conducting a credible and acceptable general elections the Independent National Electoral Commission has directed all state commissions to set up inter-agency consultative committees on election securities.

Consequently, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Abia State Mr. Austin E. Okojie said he had inaugurated the agency “designed to bring together major security agencies and INEC for the purpose of designing, deploying and evaluating a comprehensive system of election security management in Nigeria.

Speaking to Vanguard in Port Harcourt, Sunday, Okojie said, the committee would also be set up at the local government level of the state and that the most important function of the state committee was to generate specific plan to complement general directive from the national ICCES.

To be headed by the Abia State Commissioner of Police Mr. B.A. Hassan and supported by the REC, he explained that INEC would be faced with the problem of alien voters, stating that the Immigration and Customs departments would assist in managing such situation involving alien voters.

Further, he said the Nigerian Boundary Commission would properly delineate boundaries with neighbouring countries to enable customs and immigration to have proper and effective control of alien voters.

Okojie disclosed that the air force and navy would assist INEC in accessing difficult terrains for logistical deployment of election materials and personnel, while the police would make available advance manpower posting to poling units for the information of INEC.

He said “securing the electoral process has been the major challenge of election management in Nigeria”, that it was in realisation of this that the commission enlists the co-operation and support of the committee as a solution to the problem.