Two leading governorship candidates in Anambra State have expressed diverging views on the conduct of the ongoing poll.
While Charles Soludo, the aspirant of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, expressed dismay over the failure of card readers at his polling units, his counterpart in the All Progressives Congress, Andy Uba, said everything is in order.
Soludo said he was yet to cast his votes as officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission were having technical difficulties with the card reader.
The former Governor also complained that about 800 persons were still waiting for the situation to be resolved by the INEC officials.
Soludo said: “800 persons have been here since morning but we are having technical difficulties in this unit. There are also many polling units without INEC officials.
“Two fundamental things are there’s complete failure of card reader. It takes 20 minutes sometimes to accredit a voter. I’ve been here for 20 minutes waiting for INEC to fix things.
“We are getting complaints all over the state. By 12:30 voting is yet to start at my polling unit and we haven’t started voting. The experts have failed.
“This raises fundamental questions about technology. I’m shocked about the glitches and the fact that people are not allowed to vote. INEC needs to fix the technology. We’ve not even started and it’s almost 1pm so what time will the voting stop for the credibility of this process?
“In Ihiala, materials have not even left the local government but I’m calm and will be optimistic.
“The second thing is inadequacy of INEC staff to be punctual at the polling units. There are no policemen here which is the problem in some areas of the state.”
But Uba described the process as transparent and orderly after voting at his polling unit in Ugah, Aguata LGA.
“INEC’s arrangement is transparent and orderly,” he said. “Things are going smoothly; we are going to win this election.
“The security, everything is in order. By the end of everything, APC will be number one.”
Other candidates, including the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Valentine Ozigbo and Ifeanyi Uba of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), have also cast their ballots.
