19th November, 2018
Mr Chika Onuegbu, former Chairman, Trade Union Congress (TUC), Rivers Chapter, has said that security was the panacea to free and fair elections in the country.
Onuegbu made the assertion while speaking at the opening of the Rivers Correspondents’ Chapel Week in Port Harcourt on Monday.
The former TUC boss who was the chairman of the occasion, also said that those who played strategic roles in electoral processes must be provided with adequate security to ensure credibility.
“Nothing good just comes in an atmosphere of rancour and violence, every Nigerian must be interested in ensuring that the 2019 polls is credible,’’ he said.
Also, Chief Edwin Enabor, the Independent National Electoral Commission’s Director, Voter Education and Publicity in Rivers, said that the media’s role in the credibility of the forthcoming election was enormous.
He called on the media to be bold in unmasking any form of anti-democratic acts by politicians before and during the elections.
He commended the chapel for its bold step in bringing stakeholders together to brainstorm on how to achieve violence-free and credible election in 2019.
The Chairman of the chapel, Ernest Chinwo, said the violence that characterised the 2015 polls had made it expedient for stakeholders to take steps toward ensuring a peaceful electioneering.
“The journalist is a crucial footman in the electoral process, the journalist is an endangered specie; the journalist is not protected.
“They are not equipped to protect themselves too but their roles in the process is crucial, so, something has to be done to protect the journalists.