Polls: Bello lauds INEC’s preparedness, conduct of assembly polls in Kogi

Gov. Yahaya Bello of Kogi on Saturday lauded the level of preparedness and conduct of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the House of Assembly Elections in the state.

The governor gave the commendation shortly after casting his vote at Okene-Akassa Polling unit 0011 in Okene Local Government Area of Kogi.

Bello said: “In fact, from the look of things, INEC has improved on the last exercise (Presidential and National Assembly elections) as they came out early and everything is moving on fine with conduct of this house of assembly election.

“So far so good, the turnout is massive and impressive with adequate security due to the improvement by INEC. As you can see, I came here, joined the queue and I have cast my vote without any hiccup.

“We are expecting a very smooth, peaceful, credible and successful exercise today giving the positive response of the electorate.

“Today’s exercise is a local one and you should expect that the people will be enthusiastic and will come out in their numbers to vote for their own.

“We expect that at the end of this election, 25 out of the 70 candidates contesting will emerge to represent their people at the state house of assembly.”

Bello expressed confidence that all the candidates of his party, APC, would emerge victorious at the end of the exercise.

“In the presidential and national assembly elections, APC got 100 per cent victory and we don’t expect anything less from that,” he said.

Bello urged the residents to eschew any form of crisis and violence or anything that could undermine the peaceful and successful conduct of the election in the state.