Kaduna SIECOM postpones council polls for third time

By AbdulGafar Alabelewe, Kaduna

Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission (SIECOM) has postponed the local government elections scheduled to hold from August 14 to September 4, 2021.

SIECOM chairman, Dr. Saratu Audu, announced the postponement at the headquarters of the Commission during a meeting with political parties and relevant stakeholders in Kaduna on Monday.

It is the third time the local government polls would be postponed.

The chairman said: “May I announce that the election is now scheduled for the 4th September 2021.

“At the last meeting we had with you on 2nd June 2021, we informed you that we had to postpone the election that was earlier slated for 5th June 2021 to the 14th August 2021 because our machine’s batteries were still being expected.

“I am glad to inform you that those long-awaited batteries finally arrived SIECOM yesterday.

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“I am sure you will understand that it is impossible for us to conduct the election within the twelve days left to the 14th August 2021.

“We do not only have to install batteries in 6,000 units of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), we also need to install the software, upgrade the machines, test them, train our staff and ad-hoc staff (about 16,500) on the operation of the new system, then conduct public and voter education on the method of voting, before we can deploy for election”.

Kaduna PDP Secretary, Ibrahim Wusono, said his party was not comfortable with the postponement.

He said: “At our last meeting, they requested that we should suggest a date for the election but we rejected it because we know that they are not serious people.

“Now that they have rescheduled the election, we hope this will be the last time. We pray it will hold on the 4th as they said”.

The election was fixed to hold on May 15 before it was postponed to June 5 and later postponed to August 14 before the current postponement.