The Plateau North National Assembly Rerun ongoing today Friday 3rd February 2024 has witness mixed turnout of voters across the 6 LGAs of the zone. While there was voter apathy within most areas, other areas had moderate turnout of enthusiastic voters. Speaking to selected journalists at his polling unit along New Road, Naraguta B Ward, Jos North LGA, John K. Chris (Esq) said that there was general apathy, even though there exercise was largely peaceful.
He explained further that most units had an average turnout of 10%, which is an indication that the outcome will not reflect the generality of the wishes of the people. “In some pulling units you have up to 10%, in some pulling less than 10%.”.
He pointed out that “The election so far has been relatively peaceful. We have gone round most of the areas in Jos North. But one thing that is worrisome is the general apathy of the elections. And that is not unconnected with the fact that the voters are tired.”
Adding that “The voters are disenchanted because you know, you can’t keep doing one thing all over and over again. So there is general apathy in the election. In fact, in some polling units, there were no single souls there.”
“You find out that the INEC officials are just barely sleeping, relaxing and then taking a rest because there is no one to attend to.”, he opined.
He however prayed for better preparation on the part of INEC going forward “So it’s unfortunate that we have this kind of turn out. And then I also pray and hope that going forward INEC would do a lot of work in collaboration with other agencies like the National Orientation Agency. So that when we have a rerun election like this we have more sensitization and we have better turnout”.
Barrister Chris also said that what it meant was that candidates who will emerge may not necessarily be the most popular candidates. “What it means is that you are going to have an outcome that does not reflect truly the wishes of the people, because a lot of people didn’t turn out for the election.”
He blamed the low turnout on the inadequacies on the part of the electoral umpire to properly sensitize the electorate. “The voter education is quite poor. I believe it’s also responsible for the low turn out because one thing that is key is information. And then before this election there were conflicting informations here and there, particularly whether PDP will be on the ballot or not.”.
He lamented that INEC had atleast 90 days after the judgment of the Court of Appeal which ordered the rerum to have done a better job before that election. “The judgment for the rerun of this election was ordered in October, sometimes late October. So you had the whole of November, you had the whole of December, and then you had the whole of January to make your point, to have studied this judgement and come up with an informed position. If this position had been known like a month before now or a week or two weeks before now, I’m assuring you that this turnout would have been better than this. But at the twilight of the election, just less than 24 hours election, and then you decide to say ‘OK, this party is not participating and then that also gave rise to the poor turnout. So the voter education is quite poor. The information from INEC is really, really poor and that is quite responsible for the apathy and the low turn out in this election.”.
Nigeria Star News 