Late arrival of ballot papers mars poll

Late arrival of materials and slow accreditation marred voting in parts of Abia State on Saturday.

While voting went on smoothly in some parts of the state, in other places, voters were subjected to long waiting after accreditation as ballot papers were not available.



At Ugba Primary School where Gov. Theodore Orji had been accredited to vote, voting did not commence until 4:30pm as there were no ballot papers in any of the six polling units at the centre.

After waiting for over one hour inside his car, the governor finally voted around 4:35 following late arrival of ballot papers.

It took the intervention of the state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner, Professor Selina Oko for the ballot papers to be procured from other centres in the metropolis.

Oko blamed the electoral officer in charge of the area for failing to make an arrangement when he knew that the governor would vote there.

He queried the electoral officer to explain what happened since all electoral materials, including the sensitive ones had since been deployed to the LGAs on Thursday, wondering why ballot papers could not be available at the Governor’s polling booth.

Non availability of ballot papers was also reported at Mission Hill area and some other parts of Umuahia. But at Amuzukwu where our correspondent voted before continuing with the coverage of the poll, the exercise was moving on smoothly.

Addressing journalists after casting his ballot, Governor Orji expressed shock that the ballot paper could not be made available on time in his polling booth.

He said he was gathering reports on how the entire exercise was conducted in the entire state with a view to responding appropriately.