The turnout of
voters for the presidential election in Ilorin, the Kwara State
capital, was generally low compared to the National Assembly election
held last Saturday April 9.
There was light
vehicular movement around the state, and some shops were open for
business. It was also noticed that only a few party agents were at the
voting stations. The agents of the ACN, CPC, PDP were prominent, while
those of the ANPP and other parties were absent.
The state’s governor, Bukola Saraki, was accredited around 10:30am at his ward, with a few supporters around to cheer him up.
When he returned to
vote, Mr. Saraki described the process as improving, noting that the
number of voters had increased. He however, described the success
recorded in the poll so far as that of Nigerians and not just of INEC.
“I am very happy
with the way things are going,” he said. “I have come to vote for the
candidate of my choice and I am very confident that Insha Allah, by the
end of the day, PDP will be victorious. Jonathan’s government promised
a free and fair election and as you can see, everything has been
peaceful and I will urge the people to let it continue this way. We are
now two down, they should let the last one also be better.”
Also speaking after
she voted, the governorship aspirant of the ACPN, Gbemi Saraki said
“The turnout is low. As you can see this place is not like last week,
many people did not come around to vote and like I was joking with some
reporters and security agencies earlier, I am here like them to observe
my civic responsibility and I expect people also to come out to the
same.”
She complained about the arrangement at the polling unit, with security agencies moving close to ballot boxes.
Allegations of rigging
Dele Belgore, who
contested the governorship primary under the Action Congress of
Nigeria, also alleged that a lot of evil acts were going on in the
surbub of the states, saying that people were scared to come out
because of threats by the government and PDP.
“The PDP is
responsible for it, because people have been sufficiently scared
because there were a lot of intimidation, civil servants have been
threatened; our traditional rulers have been threatened and government
workers have gone around their neighbourhood, threatening other
ordinary voters. So all that has contributed to the low turnout of
voters.
“As for my own
impression of the election so far, it is a total failure; rigging has
reached an unprecedented level; it is not enough now to start saying
they will rig the result, the rigging started by disenfranchising
people.” Mr. Belgore said.
There were also allegations of intimidation and electoral malpractices across the suburbs of the state.
