From Jude Owuamanam, Jos
The Chairman of the Plateau State Independent Electoral Commission (PLASIEC), Plangji Cishak, has expressed satisfaction at the turnout of voters in today’s local government election.
No fewer than 894 candidates in 11 political parties are seeking votes to fill the chairmanship and councillorship positions in 17 local government areas of the state.
There are 2,789, 528 voters in 342 electoral constituencies with 325 Electoral wards and 4989 polling units.
Speaking with newsmen in his office on Saturday, Cishak said that as of 11 am, the commission had registered 40 per cent voting success while Electoral materials have been distributed.
According to him, the commission started the distribution from far-off local government areas so as to beat the voting time.
He assured the voting population that nobody would be disenfranchised as arrangements have been concluded to allow those in queue to vote even up to midnight
He said, “The updates we’re getting from the situation room are that quite a number of voters across the state have started voting.
“As of the time I was in the Situation Room, it was about 30 to 40 per cent turnout across the state, but unfortunately because our materials, the sensitive materials, arrived at our office very late, so we now chose to start distribution at the farthest local governments to ensure
that those who are close will be attended later.
“Unfortunately for us, materials were shared very late into the morning of today. Before I came to the office, I had to go to about four ward areas and I saw these supervisors trying to discharge them with their materials, presiding officers and the poll clerks to the respective polling units.
On the observation that some of the software was not either downloading or they’re having issues, Cishak said, “Where are we now as we speak is that we have made provisions, we have envisaged that, and we’ve made provisions in the law where there are glitches, where it could not be able to download, they will revert to the manual.
“The accreditation is a dual process. First the verification, then the manual register. As long as the person is in the register and he has his details, he will be accredited through the manual. But where the VVS is working, we advise that it should be sustained.”