Osun poll witnesses high turnout amid tight security

There was high turnout on Saturday as residents of Osun headed to their polling units to vote in the governorship election.

Correspondents of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) covering the election report a high turnout at many of the polling units visited across the three senatorial districts of the state.

A heavy security cordon was also thrown on the state with the massive deployment of policemen as well as other security agencies while soldiers were sighted on the outskirts of the state capital.

NAN reports that there are 3,010 Polling Units and 755 Polling Points spread across the three senatorial districts and 30 local governments areas of the state.

Although INEC registered a total of 1,682,495 voters, some 400,000 Permanent Voters Cards remained uncollected at at Friday.

NAN also reports that although 48 parties are participating in the election, the frontline candidates are Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress(APC), Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party and Iyiola Omisore of the Social Democratic (SDP).

NAN also reports that accreditation and voting commenced about 8 am simultaneously across many polling units

In Osogbo, the state capital, many of the residents had trooped to their polling units as early as 6.am.

NAN reports that at Osunbukola Ward 10 Unit 003 Polling Unit in Egbedore, more than 300 voters were sighted on the queue while accreditation and voting commenced about 8.10am.

There were also some policemen and NSCDC personnel at the polling unit.

The Accreditation Officer at the unit, Mashood Samson, told NAN that the exercise has been hitch-free with the card readers working perfectly.

An official of the Transition Monitoring Group, Dr Abiola Afolabi, told NAN the exercise in the units visited so far has been orderly.

At the Ward 5 Unit 1 Polling Unit in Osogbo Local Government, more than 300 voters were on the queue for accreditation and voting which started at 8.10.am.

An international observer from the National Democratic Institute who simply identified herself as Miss Courtney said the exercise so far had been transparent, an assessment corroborated by Busayo Soyebi of the Centre for Transparent Advocacy.