Voters in Niger State commend INEC for improved elections

The Niger State governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress Party APC Hon Umar Bago has commended the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC for the smooth conduct of the election.

Bago made the commendation in an interview with Voice of Nigeria after casting his vote at Tswashagi Raba polling unit of Landzu ward, Bida Niger State.

Bago who applauded the swift action of the electoral commission also commended the massive turnout of voters in the Gubernatorial and State House of Assembly Elections in the State.

“At this point in time, INEC is excellent. I just voted here and the BVAS is very swift, everything is working. The turnout of voters is impressive and as they have come out en mass to vote, they should protect their vote, they should escort their vote until it gets to the collation centre” Bago said.

He further pleaded with the voters to maintain the calm that had been established from the commencement of the election.

 

Low record of BVAS failure

The Chairman Bida LGA, Hon Bala Shaba said that the record of cases of Biomodal Voter Accreditation System BVAS, failure was extremely low as most of the machines worked fine and INEC officials showed up immediately to fix it whenever they were alerted.

“Normally whenever you have equipment, there is the tendency that one or two may decide to fail, that is the situation we face and immediately we call the officials they do appear to take care of the situation. So I can score them 95 percent” he said.

An Election Observer, Mr Ebuka Molokwu said that as early as 8:00 am, INEC ad-hoc staff were already on ground while voting started by 8:30 am.

“So far so good, all the centres we’ve been to, people turned out en mass and the voting process were equally going on peacefully. We observed that the BVAS are working smoothly, they didn’t have any issues of technicalities. INEC has improved so far compared to the last Presidential election”.

One of the voters and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Muhammad Ndayako noted that the the nature of conduct of agents from different political parties is another thing that is worth commending as they were seen working side by side with each other without hitches.

“The process today here in this unit is seamless, we hope INEC will continue to improve it’s electoral administration and processes. The turn out is impressive, people want their vote to count, and I believe that is what is happening” He added.

Peaceful and orderly voting

Another voter Dr Aisha Ndayako also testified that the voting pricess is “peaceful, orderly”.

He said the BVAS machine worked very well with everybody conducting themselves appropriately.

“My view is that it is free and fair, nobody is coerced, everybody is allowed to express their will to choose who they want. And we are here sitting calmly, observing” She said.

Another voter, Umar Faruk Abdulmalik also said that the voting process was fast enough as a result of the smooth operation of the machine.

“If the BVAS was misbehaving, you would have seen a long queue here” he said.

 

And for Muhammad Kudu N who was also a voter, he said that the massive turnout of voters in the Gubernatorial and State House of Assembly Elections is owed to the fact that citizens feel more of the closeness of the state government.

“The turn out is more than the Presidential election because this has to do with the grassroot election. The gubernatorial and State House of Assembly Elections are of keen interest” he said.

So far there has been no report of violence across the 14 wards of Bida Local Government Area since voting commenced.

 

 

 

Emmanuel Ukoh