Scarcity of hotel rooms, queues hit Lokoja hours to governorship election

Michael Adeshina

With just few hours to the governorship election in Kogi State, hotel reservations in Lokoja, the state capital, are fully booked.

Our correspondents gathered that most of the hotel rooms have been booked months in advance.

A visit to some of the hotels in the city on Thursday, November 9, showed that there were no vacant rooms despite that most of the rooms were not yet occupied by those who booked them.

Some of the Hotels visited include Royal Roftana, Idrianana Hotel on Idrinana Close, Lokongoma Phase II, Lokoja, Suitoria Hotel, Zone 8 Road, beside New Stadium, Twins Palace Hotel, Hon. Yusus Avenue and Lily Grand Hotel, Lokogoma Phase 2. They were all booked.

A worker at Royal Roftana told PM News reporters that the rooms were booked in advance by politicians.

With the development, journalists, security agents, election observers who did not book months ahead had to find alternatives by moving to outskirt of Lokoja. And even the major hotels in the outskirt of the city were still all booked.

PM News correspondents had to lodge at the only available room in a Christian guest house outskirt of Lokoja.

Investigation also showed that the prices of hotel rooms both in rural areas and cities have increased due to an influx of guests from other states for the election.

Aside from hotels, the market places were also filled. Many residents of Kogi state were captured buying enough foodstuff that could last them till Monday.

Queues were also observed at many petrol stations in Lokoja.

A resident of Lokoja who spoke to PM News noted that the last minute rush to buy foodstuff and other things were necessary as many people plan to stay indoor till the results are announced with no violence.

The driver who identified himself as Isa said he plans to vote but he must be sure that the environment is safe before leaving his house.

He urged the Kogi State Government, INEC and the Federal Government to ensure that the election is conducted with no violence.

Despite the show of force by security personnel, another Lokoja resident Haruna told PM News that he will not vote because he is not sure his vote will count and also not sure about security for supporters of opposition parties.

Meanwhile, a trader who identified himself as Mr. Ibrahim Bello stated that he will be leading his friends and family to his polling unit tomorrow.

Bello noted that he will be voting APC because the current governor did well in areas of security and infrastructure.

He added that the governor also did well in providing good medical facility.

INEC ready for Kogi election

Gabriel Longpet, INEC’s resident electoral commissioner in Kogi, has assured residents of the state that the electoral body was 100 per cent ready.

Speaking with journalists today, Mr Longpet confirmed that the commission recruited over 15,000 ad hoc staff to help in the smooth conduct of the poll.

He noted that two million registered voters are expected to vote on Saturday and assured the residents that all votes will be well accounted for.

The INEC official said, “We have 3,508 polling units and each of these units will be manned by four ad hoc staff aside from the security personnel that will be around to ensure peaceful conduct of the election. We shall deploy more staff and BVAS in densely populated polling units to complement those we are going to use.

“To be precise, we are going to use more than 900 backup BVAS. This is because some polling units have more than 1,000 to 2,000 registered voters, and we have to split the number by creating more voting points for easy voting. This becomes imperative as we don’t want to give room for anything that will delay the process.”

Mr Longpet added, “As soon as there is a report of any BVAS failure or challenge, we shall provide another one and configure it to that polling unit for smooth continuation of voting.”

The INEC official also mentioned that the BVAS were deployed to the 21 local government areas of the state in readiness for the election.