By Mohammed Umar
There were pockets of crisis at Rini town in the early hours of Saturday during the Bakura State House of Assembly bye -election in Zamfara state as the former Commissioner Ministry for Local Government Muttaka Rini and serving commissioner in the Ministry, Yahaya Chado nearly exchanged blows.
Rini, an APC stalwalt, protested the presence of the PDP stalwart Chado at his polling unit. The crisis snowballed into near fisticuffs but for the prompt intervention of security men.
However, the bye-election recorded massive turn out of voters in all the polling units. The turn out of voters for the bye- election might not have been unconnected with strong competition and rivalry of the two contending political parties in the election, PDP and APC.
It was observed that women turned out massively and patiently waited in the queue to cast their votes. A presiding officer at Lambar Bakura polling unit lamented the malfunctioning of the card reader, which failed to capture the voters.
“Our card reader developed problem, so we decided to follow the voters register properly and allow electorate to cast their votes”, he said.
The situation was the same at Balgare polling unit, the election went on smoothly without rancour.
The election was peaceful in the polling units in Bakura township, the headquarters of Bakura local government area, as major roads were blocked by voters.
It was noticed that election materials arrived polling units as early as possible and election commenced in earnest.
But there were allegations of vote buying from both sides in almost all polling units.
