Just in: 2019 guber polls record Nigeria’s lowest voter turnout since 1999
…Fallouts of presidential election results, Poor party campaigns fingered
As the curtain for 2019 general elections draws with today’s gubernatorial elections in 29 states and House of Assembly elections in all the states plus council elections in the FCT, reports from monitoring revealed high level voter apathy.
Apart from poor turnout generally, there are cases of militarization of several South-South states, Kwara and few other states in the north as burning and snatching of ballot boxes featured in many states with deaths recorded in Imo and Benue states as at the time of filing this report.
On why voter apathy dominated the scene, political analysts’ say majority who failed to turnout for voting felt bad over the results of the presidential elections with the maxim that their votes may not count after all.
Another group of election analysts linked the observed high voter apathy to not knowing the candidates very well due to poor party campaigns and manifestos.
In a telephone interview with the President of one of the leading Civil Society groups who pleaded anonymity, the official averred that “From my years of monitoring elections in Nigeria since 1999, I think this particular election remains the worst in terms of voter apathy.”
“The polling units I visited generally looked like something else. I do not want to say they look like a morning scene. It’s terrible.
“In fact, majority of Nigerians that even voted at all were mainly parents with very limited number of youths”.
“The youths seem to have been disconnected by both guber and House candidates during their campaigns and can best be used to explain why youths did not show up as they did during the presidential election on February 23rd.
“I think something needs to be done to reawaken the political consciousness of Nigerians so as to change the sad outlook. In this case, I hold political parties responsible because there are indications that majority of the parties did not do real campaign ahead of the guber elections.
However, in another interview with a seasoned journalist who monitored the elections in Lagos and Oriade LCDA of Amuwo-Odofin LGA, Mr. Aaron Ukodie, he decried that “Democracy is dying in Nigeria going by the height of voter apathy encouraged by all manners of electoral infractions”.
“You see more than half of those who voted in Feb 23 did not turn out today, March 9
“More than half of those who turned out to vote for PDP on Feb 23 did not turn out today
Ukodie averred that “While APC did not lose much from voters’ apathy, PDP recorded much voters boycott”.
“It is also interesting to let you know that in the units where I observed the elections the security officers and the INEC staff where being transported back to the Oriade OLCDA by APC agents. I know them because they are my neighbors,” Aaron Ukodie revealed.
