By Steve Unegbu
The All Progressive Congress Running mate of the Abia state gubernatorial Candidate ,Rt Hon.Martins Azubuike ,has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission to improve and upgrade the card Readers so that the malfunctioning and cases of not accessing fingerprints will not repeat again in the coming governorship general election .
Speaking at his polling unit in Umuomenta Nbawsi in Isialangwa ,after casting his vote ,he disclosed that ,the malfunctioning of the card readers affected many units in his local government to the extent that some units on their own resorted to manual accreditation.
Hon .Azubuike revealed that ,” we also had cases of crisis and violence in some parts of the local government, I want to thank God that in Umuomenta Nbawsi ward 10, it is largely peaceful,to the extent that people cast their votes and some of the units are already counted and result noted “
He said ,apart of the failure of the card readers ,” some of the anomalies we witnessed in the exercise include the unavailability of the supervisor for the ward ,who left immediately after sharing materials ,we do not even know the collation officer,and the INEC materials arrived late particularly in my unit.They arrived at about after 1 PM ,we are lucky to some extent that the card reader after initial hiccups picked up and worked ,until the end of the exercise “
He described the election as generally peaceful ,while charging the Independent National Electoral commission to upgrade the card reads such that they can function like for six hours