Early results from the supplementary governorship elections in Adamawa show a low turnout of voters, which may be enough to give Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of the People’s Democratic Party, victory over Aisha Dahiru of the All Progressives Congress.
From the votes so far released, Aisha Dahiru, the APC candidate may no longer be able to make up the votes deficit.
Dahiru was trailing Fintiri by 31,000 votes after the March 18 election and needed virtually all the 37,000 registered voters with PVCs to turn up on Saturday’s supplementary polls to overcome the deficit.
In the results released from Yola South, only 1,552 of the 5,477 eligible voters turned up. APC got 797 votes to PDP’s 678 votes. In Demsa LGA, 168 of the 366 eligible voters turned up with the PDP securing 124 of those votes against the APC’s 43.
In Yola North LGA, 746 of the 2,222 eligible voters showed up while 368 voted for APC and 357 voted for PDP.
Results from Ganye LGA show that 501 of the 863 eligible voters showed up. APC secured 176 of the votes with PDP scoring 309.
In Jada LGA, only 442 of the 802 eligible voters showed up. APC got 145 of their votes while the PDP got 271.
In Shelleng LGA, 1,081 voters were registered to vote but only 526 were accredited yesterday. APC got 223 of their votes to PDP’s 299.
In Song LGA, 2,275 voters were registered but only 1,011 came out to vote. 558 of them voted for APC while 411 voted PDP:l.
Before the collation of results commenced however, security personnels deployed to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters in Yola, barred journalists from accessing the center, where results of governorship and assembly supplementary polls were being collated.
Accredited journalists mostlybfrom the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), were turned away by the combined security team at the center, on Saturday.
The security officials were said to have received the directives from the above to stop journalists from entering the Centre.
LEADERSHIP Sunday reports that, as at 3:00 pm local government collation officers had already gathered at the collation centre, even before the election ended across the state.
Dr Aliyu Idi Hong, Peoples Democratic Party agent told journalists that the INEC officials are contemplating shifting the collation centre from it normal Bank Road venue to an unknown destination for reasons best known to them.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Barrister Yunusa Hudu Ari, could not be reached to comment on the matter.
The conduct of governorship and state assembly supplementary elections, however commenced peacefully with accreditation of voters and voting taking place simultaneously, amidst tight security in the state.
LEADERSHIP Sunday reports that, both sensitive and non sensitive election materials arrived polling units at about 8:00 a.m, while accreditation of voters began immediately.
Voters, were seen orderly on queue at unit 01 Alhaji Buba Jalo, unit 02 Buba Mai gari, unit 05 Kofar Jauro Audu in Yola-North LGA and unit 06 Makama A word Lamido Mustapha clinic Yola-South LGA.
The turnout of voters was impressive across most of the polling units visited.
However, people defied restriction of human and vehicular movement from 12 am to 5 pm by the police, as shops were seen open and people went about their normal businesses in the entire state.
Police and other security personnel were seen at all the polling units and checkpoints were mounted on major roads in the state.
The supplementary elections, in ongoing in 69 polling units with a total number of registered voters of 42,785, while PVCs collected in those PUs are 32,935 across 20 LGAs in the state.
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