By; RALPH OKHIRIA, Benin.
Many eligible voters last Saturday turned up at their voting centres oblivious of the fact that the Edo state governorship election earlier scheduled for that date, Saturday, September 10, had been postponed to Wednesday, September 28.
The voters claimed ignorance of a shift in the election date, saying the postponement was not properly announced to the knowledge of the generality of the state.
One of them, Morgan Idabie told New Nigerian that he was unaware of the new date, hence he decided to go to his voting centre to vote for the candidate of his choice.
“I was not aware that the election has been shifted. Nobody told me and there was no electricity to power my television or radio to listen to the news of the day.
“It’s a pity that INEC decided to change the date of the election after boasting even on Thursday evening that they were fully ready to conduct the governorship election.
“This is ward 4 in Egor local government area of the state and you can see many people here now wanting to vote. They too, like myself were not aware of the change in date.
“It is an avoidable disappointment from the side of INEC. Why will the commission decide to shift the election at the last minutes. That was not fare at all,” Mr Idabie quarried.
It will be recalled that based on the advice from the Nigerian Police and Directorate Security Services, about security threat in the state, with a warning that they could not guarantee security of voters, INEC had to hastily changed the election date from Saturday, September 10, to Wednesday, September 28.
