The Federal Government has announced the closure of all land and sea borders ahead of Saturday’s presidential election.
A statement issued yesterday in Abuja by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior, Abubakar Magaji, said “All borders will effectively be closed from midnight March 25, to midnight Saturday, March 28″.
The statement added that the borders would be closed “to allow for the peaceful conduct of the forthcoming national elections”.
It also said the Nigeria Immigration Service has been directed to ensure that non-Nigerians do not participate in any part of the election process.
Meanwhile, the Comptroller General (CG), of Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), David Shikfu Parradang, yesterday convened a meeting with some embassy officials and leaders of ECOWAS communities resident in Nigeria.
They included; representatives of Republics of Cameroun and Chad. NIS in a statement issued yesterday by its Public Relations Officer (PRO), Chukwuemeka Obua said the CG told the officials and community leaders to advise their nationals to steer clear from the forthcoming elections, warning that any non-Nigerian caught interfering in the electoral process would be made to face the law.
He stated that the warning has become necessary to ensure that the existing robust relationship among member states in the sub region is not undermined by unnecessary meddlesomeness in the internal electoral affairs of member states.
He also enjoined the community leaders to advise any of their nationals who is in possession of Nigeria’s Permanent Voter’s Card, National Identity Card or Passport to surrender same immediately as anyone caught with any of them shall be brought before the law.
The Comptroller General further stated that, “Shortly, the NIS shall embark on biometric registration of all ECOWAS and other African citizens resident in the country. The exercise, he said, is to build a reliable database of all non-Nigerians resident anywhere in the country.
The meeting is one of the several efforts by the Service to sensitize non-Nigerians on their roles before, during and after the forth coming national elections.
On the credibility of the Saturday polls, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reaffirmed its readiness to conduct what would be adjudged the best elections in the history of Nigeria so far.
Chairman of the Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, yesterday at a national stakeholders’ summit on the 2015 general elections held at the Sheraton Hotels and Towers Abuja, said “we have introduced new policies and measures, which we believe would enhance the quality, transparency and integrity of the conduct of the elections”.
Professor Jega stressed that: “We believe that effective utilization of the period of extension would enable INEC to have a flawless, near perfect, conduct of the elections.”
Among such areas he mentioned include: tremensdous efforts put towards improving collection rate of Permanent Voters cards (PVCs) which has resulted to collection rate rising to up to 82 per cent, more public demonstration of Card Readers in each geo-political zone, and additional training for ad-hoc staff especially for those who will be operating the card readers.
Other areas are: intensification of voter education, sensitization and public enlightenment and arrangements for Election Day Logistics by Resident Electoral Commissioners in the states especially transportation in consultation with the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW).
The INEC boss, who took stakeholders through processes and procedures for the elections, revealed that the Commission has completed plans to make available copies of result sheets from polling units on the website for every voter and stakeholder to view and download, further improving the credibility and transparency of the process of collation of results.
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