Low Turnout, Late Arrival Of Materials Mar LG Election In Edo

Low turnout of electorates and late arrival of electoral materials characterized the Saturday Local Government Elections in Edo.

Newspavilion monitored the poll in Egor local government area, one of the municipal councils in Benin, and observed that materials started arriving the units few minutes before 10am.

Some political parties’ agents had defied the heavy downpour, which could partly be blamed for the delay of the election, to arrive at their polling units even before 8am.

Some voters who were at the polling centres some minutes past 8am, expressed surprise that neither electoral materials nor electoral officers had arrived.

A security officer deployed to unit 44 ward 10 of Egor local government area, who preferred anonymity, said materials were still being awaited as of 8:30.

At the units 1 to 7 ward 7 in the same council, which are domiciled at Olua Primary School, Uselu, materials and officials of the Edo State Independent Electoral Commission (EDSIEC) came in with electoral materials by 9:37am.

The situation was worse at Oredo local government area, where materials were yet to arrive their various units visited by 10:15am.

Some voters who were already waiting at units 1 to 3 Ward 12 in front of Oba of Benin market in spite of the closeness to the Oredo local government secretariat.

The situation was similar at units 11 and 31 in ward 1 of Oredo local government area where materials were still been expected as of 10:30.

Some voters who spoke with Journalists expressed shock with the development.One of them, Charles Osagie said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who was usually blamed for late start of election, had never be seen this delayed.

Osagie called for extension of voting time since the state electoral body could not start in time.