Muazu Babangida Aliyu, a former governor of Niger State, has linked the state’s poor voter participation to the results of the country’s recent presidential and National Assembly elections.
He made this known shortly after casting his ballot in Minna.
Aliyu explained that the inability of INEC to employ the BVAS while results were being announced from voting places is the reason why Nigerians are not satisfied.
He stated that “for today, I am still expecting that people will come out and if they don’t, it could be justified on the basis that I have voted but what I voted was not what we saw at the end of the day.
“Even in Niger State, we saw where BVAS was not used but results came out like people were more than the voting population. If we see apathy today it is as a result of what happened on the 25th.
“The confidence of the people was based on the assurances given by INEC about using machine and electronic voting and passing this unto the server but that did not happen. Yet they are trying to justify this. Why did you tell us that you would use BVAS and you not use it.
The former governor stated that for democracy to be firmly established in the nation, the people’s votes must be respected, adding, “When something bad is happening, it must be this country’s political culture. That has to be fixed”.
He added, “if someone says that in 2023 One spaghetti and two wrappers will make someone vote for a political party, no one would have believed it”.
