The Cross River State chapter of All Progressives Congress has challenged the Independent National Electoral Commission to arrest and prosecute all those alleged to be buying the Permanent Voter Cards from the electorate in the state.
The party also challenged the relevant law enforcement agencies to take the bold step of assisting INEC in arresting the buyers, whom it alleged are agents of the Peoples Democratic Party.
But the state PDP chairman, Mr. John Okon, denied the allegation, adding that the APC had resorted to propaganda after failing to campaign in any local government area ahead of the elections.
In an interview in Calabar, the state capital on Thursday, the state Secretary of the APC, Mr. Victor Ebong, cautioned the electorate against selling their PVCs for whatever reason, adding that those who sold theirs risked being disenfranchised.
He said, “The PDP has been going about buying PVCs from members of the electorate with the aim of manipulating the polls in their favour. What they do is to go about purchasing these PVCs in our stronghold.
“In fact, we hear that they are targeting at least 20 members of the electorate from our stronghold who are actually our supporters and sympathisers. If you multiply that figure by the 2,283 polling units across the state, you know what number of people would have been disenfranchised as a result of the manipulation of their names and data in the card reader mechanism”.