Cross River State which witnessed large crowd of voters for the presidential and national assembly elections, was very peaceful during the exercise.
A voter Mr. Joe Ogar, at polling unit 15 along Etagbo Street in Calabar in the southern district of the state, commended the exercise.
He said he did not expect the polls to go as smoothly as it had.
“We voted freely and even finished in time and the votes counted.”
The method of accreditation and voting at once is excellent as it made the process much faster. It is a good exercise,” he said.
Even in the central district of the state always notorious for election violence the polls went smoothly.
In Ikom Local Government Area, where our reporter monitored the exercise, crowds had started gathering at the various polling units in preparation for the exercise.
Even the northern part of the state, where, Governor Ben Ayade comes from had a calm election.
Ayade expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the elections, describing the exercise and turnout as both peaceful and massive.
Accompanied by his wife, Linda, he arrived Kakum Town Hall, Ipong polling unit, Obudu, with registration area code CR/09 at about 11:05 where they voted.
However, there were pockets of incidents of issues as late arrival of materials, card reader issues, mix up of election materials and violence.
For instance in Ikom, vehicles to transport materials to 25 polling units and 64 voting points under Ikom Urban area were not available until around 12pm.
In the confusion a couple of result sheets were mixed up. The problem was however sorted out but a lot of time wasted.
In some polling units in Calabar like Ward 12 Unit 44 voting did not commence till about 1pm.
In Imabana in Abi Local Government Area of the state, there were reports of an APC agent being stabbed.
However, generally, the elections in the state seemed a success, especially against the background of the experience of previous elections.
,
