The Nasarawa State Local Government Councils elections held on Wednesday, October 6, 2021, did not go as expected as sensitive materials meant for the election were not dispatched to virtually all the 174 wards and polling units across the state.
At the Polling Units, it was gathered that in Keffi, Nasarawa, and Toto Local Government Areas, election materials as of 1 pm on the election day, six hours from the scheduled time which would have been around 8 am, materials were yet to be distributed.
The situation generated tension in Toto, as both members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, in that area and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have expressed their disappointment in the exercise.
Some of the aggrieved members of the APC under the aegis of Toto District Patriots, in a press briefing, alleged that materials for the election was brought into the council secretariat in Toto at around 5 am, but to their greatest amazement, at past 1 pm no material has left the secretariat to any of the 12 wards .
Alhaji Abdullahi Shafas, who spoke on behalf of other patriots, said even as a strong member of the APC, the way and manner the exercise was handled is not in the interest of the people as it contravened the principles of democracy.
According to him, “this is not what we expected from NASIEC and the Nasarawa State government.”
He said one of the surprising thing that played out was that an agent of the APC was caught with ballot papers, who was wearing a vest in disguise as a staff of the NASIEC but the securities did nothing to him.
Meanwhile, the PDP Chairman, Nasarawa Local Government Area, Honourable Attahiru Osu, in a press conference in Marmara, Nasarawa LGA, expressed disappointment with the poor but acclaimed election in Nasarawa Local Government Area.
He said election materials were not released for voting to commence at the polling units up to 4:30 pm, scoring the exercise as unjust, unfair, and shameful.
He said the PDP has decided to withdraw from the exercise. “They would have told us earlier that they wanted to do a selective election. How can you credit a completely wrong exercise?”
Corroborating, the PDP BOT Chairman, Senator Walid Jibrin, said what the NASIEC and the Nasarawa State government claimed as an election is undemocratic; they only succeeded in murdering democracy naked, which is unfair to not only the PDP but other opposition parties, unfair to the people of Nasarawa Local Government, and the state entirely.