Poll Problems Also In Plateau State

The inability of Independent Electoral Commission, INEC to provide ballot papers for electoral officers across the 17 local government of Plateau state has seriously affected the commencement of voters accreditation. At 8am, when P.M.News went round the Jos North metropolis to monitor the commencement of accreditation process, it was discovered that at almost all the polling units, large numbers of voters turned out for the accreditation exercise , but there were no INEC officials on ground to conduct the exercise. So, they are waiting endlessly without any briefing as to why the delay. Some of them who spoke to P.M.News at  about 10 am were already losing patience. They said this was not what INEC Chairman said on television yesterday.

Timothy Majang expressed displeasure over the shaky start of the elections . He said, “it is obvious that Jega did not prepare adequately for today’s election. We want to vote but INEC seems not prepared”. When P.M.News contacted the Plateau Resident Electoral Officer of INEC, Habu Zarma on why the delay, he explained that the delay came up due to absence of sensitive materials for the elections. According to him, there are deficiencies in three constituencies for the Federal House of Representative constituencies elections, namely Bassa, Jos South and Pankshin.

And for the senatorial elections ,he  said the state was yet to  receive the ballot papers  for Plateau Central , Plateau South . Even the ones received for Plateau North, he disclosed were less than half of what is needed.

He however hinted P.M.News that if  eventually they receive all the plateau ballot papers, there are still problems of  ECA series, which are used for collation of results and declare the winners. He said the materials  have not been received too .

Meanwhile, he has  made frantic efforts to contact the INEC headquarters over the problem, but he was told to remain calm. According to him, he was informed that the materials might come in with a flight any time from now. As a temporary measure , Zarma said he would instruct the Electoral Officer to tell the adhoc staff to move to various voting centres to start accreditation to cover up for the delay while they wait for the material in question. When asked that in the event the materials are not provided after the accreditation, he  simply responded , We would tell the  INEC Chairman Professor Attahiru Jega to speak to the nation”.

By  Femi Adi