The Cross River State Government has declared Friday a public holiday to ensure effective preparation for the elections.

The Chairperson of Cross River Independent Electoral Commission (CROSIEC), Ekong Boco, said that 10 political parties will participate in Saturday's local elections in the state.

Mr Boco stated this on Thursday in Calabar during the commencement of the distribution of sensitive materials to all the 18 local government areas in the state.

He, however, debunked the speculations that the materials had already been sent to the council areas.

Mr Boco publicly displayed the ballot papers before the commencement of distribution and urged political parties to keep supporting the commission.

"We will be using 3,281 polling units, as approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 9,843 ad-hoc staff, 460 supervisors, 18 returning officers and 198 collation officers," he said.

The chairperson said that all the ad-hoc staff members, including the returning officers and ward collation officers, were trained from 25 October to 27 October and expressed the hope that they would conduct themselves well during the election.

"We want everyone to see that the process is transparent and the commission is clean," he said.

Mr Boco further stated that the voting, which would be manual, would commence by 8 a.m. and end by 2 p.m.

In his remarks, the State Chairperson of the Inter-party Advisory Council, Effiom Edet, said that the council was confident that the election would be free, fair, and credible.

"We have not noticed in any way where results were signed for any political party, and so we want to let the people know that something like that cannot happen," he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Cross River State Government has declared Friday a public holiday to ensure effective preparation for the polls.