Less than 24 hours to Wednesday’s governorship election in Edo State, many journalists who had arrived the state for coverage of the exercise were yet to be accredited by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Many of the journalists besieged the commission’s headquarters in the state at Ikpoba Hill as early as 7am on today and have remained unattended to by officials the officials, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.
After several hours of waiting and struggling to see the possibility of going through with the accreditation, most of them were referred to the state’s council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists for identification before they would be accredited.
Mrs Prisillia Sule, the commission’s Assistant Director of Voter Education and Publicity in the state, explained that it was necessary for the NUJ to identify the journalists to ensure that the right persons were accredited.
According to Sule, only the state council of the NUJ can identify the authentic journalist before anyone can be accredited.
She, however, expressed the commission’s readiness to conduct the election, adding that all the sensitive materials for the poll had arrived at the 18 local government areas of the state.
(Punch)
