There was serious voter apathy in many polling units visited during the local government elections held across Bauchi State.
Journalists while monitoring the local government elections observed that in most villages, there were no sign of elections going on.
However, in few of the units, electoral officers told journalists that voters came and casted their votes and left.
In Ganjuwa LGA, in most of the polling units, there were indications that people failed to show up for the polls.
It was observed that despite the restrictions of vehicular movement placed by the Bauchi State Police Command across the State, people were seen going about their normal daily businesses unhindered.
NATIONAL ACCORD reports that the Command, in a statement made available to journalists on Friday, through its spokesman, Ahmed Wakil, a Superintendent of Police, said that vehicular movement would be restricted from 7.00am till 4.00pm on Saturday.
But in Ganjuwa, Darazo and Misau LGAs visited, people were seen going about their normal businesses.
In Soro town, Ganjuwa LGA, journalists observed that the weekly market was held with traders displaying their goods as usual in defiance to the police’s directives.
Some of them, who spoke to journalists, said they did not bother going to the polling units to cast their votes because they believe that justice would not be done.
“Is there anything like election going on today here in Soro? I don’t know about that,” a resident of the area stated.
He alleged that: “I cannot waste my time to go to anywhere to vote because I know what the outcome would be. I just know that the candidate of the ruling party (PDP) would be declared the winner, so I’d rather go out and look for what to feed my family with.”
Meanwhile, there was confusion in some polling units in Ganjuwa LGA.
At Unguwan Wakili PU 033, an agent of a political party spoke like an official of the Bauchi State Independent Electoral Commission at first.
When journalists further probed him, he disclosed that he was actually a party agent doing the work of an electoral official.
The same trend was witnessed in two other Polling Units in the area where only the agent of the Peoples Democratic Party was seen. When journalists asked of other party agents, they said that the All Progressives Congress party agent left the venue of the election a short while ago to get something.
At another Polling Unit, a man who claimed to be an agent of the APC was seen without an identification tag of his party.
When he was asked of his tag, he said he was not given any tag and when journalists asked him to mention the name of his party Chairman, he was unable to do so.
In Misau LGA, election had been concluded as of 12.30pm.
Meanwhile, the Member, representing Misau/Dambam Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Bappa Aliyu-Misau, described the election in the area as peaceful and successful.
Speaking to journalists shortly after casting his votes, Aliyu-Misau, commended the electorates for coming out en masse to elect candidates of their choice.
He denied insinuations by the opposition APC, that the PDP-led administration has concluded plans to manipulate the council polls in favour of the ruling party.
The lawmaker said: “Our people in Misau are very enlightened people, they are not the kind of people you manipulate and coarse to vote in a particular direction. They know what they want and they vote for who they fell will deliver dividends of democracy to them.
“In Misau, people are not forced to vote for a candidate. It is in Misau that the people voted for me under the PRP, they voted for another candidate in another party and they voted for Buhari in the APC.
“I don’t believe that view that the government is planning to rig the election. My opinion is that if someone losses an election, there is no allegation he won’t make or there’s nothing he won’t say but we are begging them to come forward so that we will move our ward, local government and state forward.”