Electorates in Bayelsa State had on Sunday the 26th of February, concluded elections in all the eight Local Government Areas of the state.
The Bayelsa State Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC promised to ensure that elections were held in those areas where it did not hold the previous day.
Wards 4 and 6 in Yenagoa were unable to carry out the voting exercise on the 25th of February due to various challenges encountered.
These challenges resulted to electorates of these wards, staging a protest at the State INEC office insisting that they must vote.
Voters were however relieved after they had exercised their franchise thereby allaying their thoughts of being disenfranchised.
Speaking to Voice of Nigeria’s correspondents, an electorate in ward 4 Michael Azuka, stated that the number of people who came out to vote was far less than the number that gathered to vote the previous day.
“I feel happy that we can vote today as we were unable to vote yesterday. As you can see that many people came to vote today. But the number of people is not as much as the one of the previous day. Maybe some people are still in the church, they will be coming as soon as they close from the church”, Mr. Azuka said.
Another voter, Pastor Emeka Udogwu said that what happened the previous day was very disturbing.
Udogwu further stated that the crowd on the ground was ready to vote which shows that Nigerians are very ready for change.
“Actually, hope was restored yesterday night when we heard from the radio that the vote will take place today. Early in the morning, many people went to church, and after church service, they started to rush down here. Now, everything is going on very well. Accreditation is going on, while voting has started in some units. People are patiently waiting under the sun to vote, as you can see”, he said.
On the ground to witness the voting exercise was a long-term observer of Election Observation Mission, Delta and Bayelsa States, Andreas Jordan.
Mr. Jordan said that he had been in Nigeria since January and will remain in the country till the end of March after a comprehensive report of the election had been released by the Mission.
“As one single Election observer out of about 100 mission members observing this election, it wouldn’t be up to me to give an opinion on the election process. However, what we do is, report to our team in Abuja who thus compiles the report and issues it as a preliminary statement of the mission two days after Election Day.”
The European Union observer also said that Nigeria’s democracy is very important to the Europe Union.
‘Nigeria plays a special role in the Election Observation Mission of the European Union, because to my knowledge, Nigeria is the only country that has received Election Observation Mission for seven consecutive times in a roll’, Mr. Jordan said.
“Nigeria has received the mission since 1999 when Nigeria returned to democracy. It’s a very clear sign of the importance the European Union places on democracy in Nigeria”.
At 4 pm on Sunday, most units were done with their elections.
However, at the end of elections in Epie 3, polling unit 52, the polling unit agents were unable to record the results of their unit in the BVAS machine due to network issues.
They were eventually successful with the recording of results in the BVAS machine much later in the evening after the collation of results had begun in the INEC state office, Yenagoa.
Dominica Nwabufo
