As the electorate turned out to vote for 13 local government chairmen and 147 councilors across Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule commended the smooth and peaceful conduct of the exercise......See Full Story>>.....See Full Story>>
Governor Sule gave the commendation shortly after casting his vote, alongside members of the first family at his Gudi country home in Akwanga Local Government Area on Saturday.
While noting that the exercise was ongoing without any rancor, the Governor appreciated the people of the state for embracing democracy and for believing in the administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) under President Bola Tinubu’s leadership.
He equally showed appreciation to the party in the state, as well as the Nasarawa State Independent Electoral Commission (NASIEC) for the smooth conduct of the council elections.
“From what you can see, I have just voted in my polling unit along with my family. I can see the process going smoothly. There is no rancor, no misunderstanding. I understand that about 11 political parties are participating. Yet it does not like we are having any kind of rancor whatsoever. Even though this is a unit where there is never a rancor. But we thank God Almighty from what we are hearing all over the state,” he said.
Governor Sule added that from his earlier meeting with the security agencies, the exercise is going smoothly across the entire state.
Speaking about the autonomy to be enjoyed by the winners of the ongoing election, he pointed out that local government election is a process that must be respected since it is a judgement already passed by the Supreme Court.
The Governor emphasised that local government autonomy has also been domesticated by the Nasarawa State House of Assembly, with the passage of a bill into law seeking full autonomy for local government areas in the state.
“For us in Nasarawa State, we have always respected the autonomy. But the autonomy is totally misunderstood. People are associating autonomy with the control of resources coming to every state. But the autonomy is bigger than that. People are also associating the power of the governor to dissolve and install local government chairmen. To most people, that is what they understand by autonomy. But autonomy is bigger than that. For us, it’s about funding, about development, it’s about infrastructure, about integrity and financial management of resources coming to the councils,” he added.
He said there is every need for close monitoring and supervision of how the incoming local government chairmen would manage their resources, as according to him, like other Nigerians being accused of misappropriation of funds, some elected local government chairmen may develop similar propensity.
“For us in Nasarawa, we have always had elected council chairmen. I met elected chairmen. We still have elected chairmen. I have never dissolved. As far as their money is concerned, we have never participated in the sharing of their money. As a matter of fact, they have always received less than what they require. There are many times when we have to augment the state resources to manage the local government areas. Because we have development areas in Nasarawa State and we believe development areas must be the responsibility of the state government to come in to manage,” he said.
Commenting further on the ongoing council polls, the Governor called on the people of the state to see the exercise as an opportunity to do the right thing.
Also speaking to journalists in Gudi, the Chairman of Nasarawa State Independent Electoral Commission (NASIEC) Ayuba Wandai disclosed that his commission has distributed voting materials across 90 percent of polling units in the state at the commencement of voting.
“We distributed materials to all the local government areas headquarters 48 hours before the elections. We also distributed to all the wards in the last 24 hours. We have now distributed to all the polling units. Our report shows that over 90 percent of polling units have received materials and voting has commenced,” he said.
Wandai, however, said field reports indicate some challenges of logistics in getting across voting materials in some riverine communities but assured that voting will still take place in such areas within an hour or two.
He dismissed as normal claims of low voter turnout, as according to him, voting barely started.
“We ran an open procedure for this election. We carried along all critical stakeholders in the local government election project in Nasarawa State, in our preparations. We were open. We allowed everybody to see through the process. We are optimistic that at the end of the day, the election is going to be credible, fair, and acceptable to the people of Nasarawa State,” Wandai stated.
Also commenting, Nasarawa State Commissioner of Police, Shehu Nadada, revealed that over 7,000 personnel have been deployed to various polling units, collation centres, and other strategic places for the election.
Nadada said, so far, there has not been any report of any incidence regarding the council polls, urging the people of the state to cooperate with the security agencies and electoral officials for them to carry out their responsibilities smoothly and peacefully.