Elections into all 23 Local Government Areas of Benue State on Saturday witnessed a low turnout of voters across most of the 3, 691 polling units in the state.

Our correspondent who monitored the exercise reports that there was general apathy, majorly caused by the non-inclusion of the Senator Ahmed Makarafi’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the polls.

The Makarafi-led PDP had earlier dragged Benue State Independent Electoral Commission (BSIEC) to a Federal High Court in Makurdi over rejection of its list of candidate but the case was thrown out barley 24 hours before the election on grounds that the court does not have jurisdiction to entertain the matter.

State Chairman of the Makarafi-led PDP, Sir John Ngbede, had on the basis of the ruling against them on Friday, enjoined members of the party to sit in their homes and not go anywhere near the polling unit while he assured them that the party would appeal the matter.

The exercise was also believed to have witnessed low turnout because most voters went about their normal businesses by defying the state government’s movement restriction between 8am and 3pm as some markets, petrol filling station and commercial vehicles operated.

It was observed that the Manila Market along David Mark Bypass, Apir Village market, Total filling stations, commercial motorcyclists as well as intra-bus transportation including other private establishments carried on their businesses as usual without any recourse to the directive of the state’s Commissioner of Information and Orientation, Lawrence Onoja Jnr., who placed a ban on authorised movement.

A respondent, Kyado Daniel, told our correspondent in an interview that he did not perform his civic duty because he was not a happy family man due to the economic hardship which in his estimation was caused by the APC’s administration.

Meanwhile, at the time of sending this report, results of the elections contested by eight political parties including the Senator Modu Sheriff faction which fielded only six chairmanship candidates out of 23 councils are still underway.

The ruling All Progressives Party (APC) however fielded candidates for all positions of chairmanship and counciliorship while the other parties fielded insignificant numbers of candidates with some having only one candidate for the entire vacant positions for the election. (Daily Trust)

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