There was confusion in Bayelsa State ahead of the forthcoming election on Saturday following the inability of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to retrieve all the 69 missing card readers.

The commission declared 69 card readers missing shortly after conducting the Presidential and National Assembly elections and begged persons in their possession to return them.

But it was gathered that out of the missing number 23 were returned by unknown persons while 46 were still with unknown politicians.

Some politicians were unhappy at the development raising fears that without retrieving all the stolen card readers, the electoral process would be compromised.

They were also unhappy at the inability of the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Monday Udoh to give full disclosures of the circumstances that led to disappearance of the card readers and the identities of persons who returned the first 23.

But Udoh said Thursday in Yenagoa that he had declared a two-day amnesty to persons withholding the readers.

Speaking during the stakeholders’ meeting with leaders of political parties, the REC explained that out of the 24 missing card readers in Nembe Local Government area, only 14 were recovered.

He said in Sagbama out of eight, three had been recovered, Southern Ijaw out of 24 only two were returned while in Yenagoa out of six, only three had been retrieved.

•Excerpted from a The Nation report