From Jude Dangwam, Jos

The Honourable Member Representing Langtang North Central in the Plateau State House of Assembly Hon. Nanbol Listick has described the voters apathy recorded in the just concluded Local Government Council elections across the 17 LGAs as an indication of total rejection of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) by citizens of Plateau state.

He said despite the exclusion of the major opposition party PDP from the exercise, the processes have created so many unanswered questions by the state electoral umpire.

The Lawmaker stated this in a chat with DAILY ASSET yesterday in Jos the Plateau State capital, stating that the party has some take away from the exercise going forward.

He disclosed that having set machineries to monitor the exercise, “there was great vote apathy, and you see there is no how you will tell me that out of probably 1 million registered voters.

“Let’s say if people are working base on quality, I expected people from the PDP to also vote somebody from APC. But this time around, even those that were fighting for their party, if a pulling Unit of over 500 registered voters couldn’t vote up to 20%,” means a lot for the ruling APC in the State.

He berated the exercise, which he said the normal excitement always recorded during grassroots elections in the state was totally absent.

“Whenever an exercise like this took place we all know it, when you finish voting, the result of that pulling unit’s are been made available on various Social Media platforms, but that wasn’t the case’ Nobody saw that normal excitement.

“One other critical thing is the rate at which some things took place, despite is an election day. People went to market, Amperr market was filled to the brim, Langtang North, Market was also fill to the brim.

“Even Yelwa and Mangu were all busy with their daily activities, but we shutdown business activities for the whole day in the city center instead of a half day judging by the way the exercise went looking at the economic angle and the measures taken by the State Government,” he said.

He alleged that the script played by the state electoral umpire amounts to serious offence.

“One other thing we noticed is false political parties, why I said false is because we are all politicians and all the political parties arrange on ballot papers, where were their posters before the election? Where they campaigning,” he questioned.

The Lawmaker however admitted that his party the PDP has made serious mistakes and must admit and move forward. “Yes, PDP is on the ground on the Plateau, but don’t do things as if you are a ruling party,” he cautioned

He said the internal problem PLASIEC capitalize on was an internal problem which was the mistakes of his political party but has not affected the chances of the party come 2023.

“This is a grassroots election, and you don’t expect somebody contesting for Chairmanship and you have expected voter apathy in his pulling unit, you don’t expect somebody contesting for councillorship and you don’t expect apathy in his pulling unit.

“Somebody is a House of Assembly Member you don’t expect apathy in his pulling unit but that is what happened.

“Check previous grassroots election and compare it with this, even 25% of votes from those pulling units that Chairman is there, House of Assembly is from there and Councilor were not gotten.”