Council polls were held in Yobe State on Saturday under heavy security. Several voters turned out for the exercise to elect chairmen and councillors into the 17 local government areas in the state.
All the polling booths in the state had combined teams of security personnel manning them. Soldiers, police, civil defence corps and immigration officers were drafted to all the polling booths to protect voters, electoral officers and voting materials.
According to a report by the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, voters were already at the polling booths as early as 7am to accredit and cast their votes. Businesses were closed for the exercise.
It was also learnt that only 10 political parties participated in the election. The Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, did not partake in the polls.
The Governor of the state, Ibrahim Gaidam, described the exercise as successful. He decried the false alarm being raised by some ‘mischievous politicians’ over the security situation in Yobe State.
He said, “I think politicians should stop making noise since they are not on ground. We are the ones on the ground; anytime this kind of thing is happening, they should call us to give them the true positions of things on the ground.”
Gaidam added that, “we know what is going on here because we are here on the ground. We know the security situation in our state that is why we went ahead to conduct the election.”
Yobe State is one of the three states under the emergency rule, following several terrorists’ attacks in the North. The other two are Adamawa and Borno States.
Do you have a story/gist for us? Kindly send to
aproko247@gmail.com
or call +2348055590141
or BB: 22F89BFE
Follow us on Twitter: @aproko247
Like us on facebook.com/aproko247
