Adamawa poll: Voter turnout low, APC agents shun polling units

Many voters have refused to partake in the ongoing supplementary governorship election in Adamawa state.

Adamawa was among the six states where the March 9 governorship election was declared inconclusive and supplementary elections scheduled for March 23.

But the exercise could not hold on Saturday as a high court in Yola, the state capital, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to go ahead with it based on a suit filed by Mustapha Shaba, governorship candidate of the Movement For Restoration and Defense for Democracy (MRDD), over the omission of his party’s logo on electoral materials used in the initial poll.

The court vacated the order on Tuesday and INEC fixed the supplementary poll for Thursday.

However, TheCable observed low turnout in the exercise holding in 44 polling units across 29 wards in 14 local government areas of the state.

Across the poling units, TheCable also observed there were more security personnel than there were voters.

Agents of the APC were not also present at most of the polling units. The party had earlier said it would not participate in the exercise.

“This is not a keen contest because the APC lost interest since yesterday,” a Yola resident told TheCable.

“APC is only participating because the party is planning to go to court after the polls. Most of the APC agents are absent from the polling units because Governor Bindow had refused to disburse funds for logistics.”

The source added that some stakeholders in the state had called on Jibrila Bindow, the incumbent governor and candidate of the APC, to concede the election to Ahmadu Fintiri, candidate of the of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Fintiri had polled 367, 741 ahead of his APC rival who had polled 334, 995.