Reports reaching Greenbarge Reporters from the governorship election conducted today in Kogi state showed that thugs snatched a ballot box in Dekina even when voting had not started.
Also, unknown thugs tore the result sheets of the election in
ward, 27, at Anyigba. The two incidences, among many occurred at the Eastern Senatorial Area of the state from where the candidate of the two giant parties: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) emerged.
Confirming the incidences the Deputy Director of Publicity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nick Dazang said: “There was also an incident in Dekina where a ballot box was snatched even when voting had not started. There was also one ward, 27, at Anyigba, where ballot and result sheets were torn.
He said however that apart from these incidences and other few challenges, card readers’ performance, security, accreditation and voting processes were successful. He explained that
there were some minor challenges of the card readers malfunctioning but disclosed that mechanism were immediately deployed to correct them.
Dazang said that the incidence of violence that was anticipated during the poll was not much, when compared with the cases in previous elections in the state.
“In the time past, we had situations where our staff were abducted, people were killed. There is no incident of violence at that level. We have not heard about anybody’s death or abduction.
“There is an improvement compared to previous elections in the state, which is considered to be volatile.”
Dazang said that efficiency of the card reader was above average on Saturday as the uses of incident form were negligible, adding: “there was one particular area in Dekina where our officials were not proficient in the use of card reader and we are investigating what happened.
“Otherwise, I think generally, the election went on well.
“We have technical teams in all the 239 wards and in all the wards, we have ICT staff moved in to troubleshoot any experienced challenges.”
Dazang said the claim of the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Governor Idris Wada, that the card readers were not working and that there were inadequate incidence forms at polling units did not correspond with the real situation.
“I don’t think what he said tallies with what we have seen and what we have monitored. The card reader was much successful. The incidences where we have that failure were very few.”
The deputy director added that in all the cases where there was card reader failure, there were sufficient incident forms.
In the area were ballot box was snatched before the commencement of the election, Dazang said the snatcher wasted his time as it would not affect the election.
“In any case, even if there were ballot papers and he snatched them, the ballot papers cannot be counted when returned.” [myad]
