Bayelsa election Peaceful, but marred by late arrival of materials – Observers group

An accredited election observers group, the ‘SING Nigeria’ has said that the last Saturday’s governorship election in Bayelsa State was peaceful, as voters conducted themselves in an orderly manner, but hinted that the poll was marred by late arrival of materials and officials.

The Executive Director of the group, Mr Idris-Etanami Abiodun Usman, while presenting the preliminary report of its observations during the election in Yenagoa on Tuesday, added that the smart card reader machines worked well and the conduct of the voters was reasonably peaceful.

He said that the group’s observers were redeployed to the field for the election across all the Local Government Areas of the state and they visited a number of local government areas including Kolokuma Okpokuma, Ogbia, Sagbama, Nembe, Ekeremor, Southern Ijaw and Yenagoa.

He said: “During the visit, we observed that there was a strong presence of security operatives in the state which gave the people confidence to go out and exercise their franchise.

“The peculiar terrain of the state coupled with the poor state of infrastructure, meant that the elections were always going to be characterized by several bottlenecks, that are manifested in the late arrival of officials and materials to the polling units and voting points.

“Our team arrived in Ogbia town, at about 8:00am and there were no signs of officials or materials present anywhere in the town up until about 10:00am when we departed the town for Sagbama Local Government.

“We also visited Sagbama local government, where we visited Unit 5 in Ward 2, and the 4 voting points witnessed a very impressive turnout of voters who came out to exercise their right.