By SAMUEL ELEMUKAN, CYNTHIA LAWRENCE AND ABIGAIL SOLOMON
The Student Union Government (SUG) of the University of Jos on the 4th of July 2017 have new EXCOs for the 2016/2017 session in an election exercise described by stakeholders from the Lamingo Campus, the Bauchi Road Campus, and the Naraguta Campus as free and fair.
Unijos Echo speaking to the Man O’ War security officer at the Lamingo Campus Polling Unit, Daniel Damsihi, after the exercise, he stated that they haven’t encountered any problems or challenges in organizing the exercise and there have not been any sort of security challenges stated. This declaration was also affirmed by an Electoral Officer, Mr. Stanley Zamna, from the Faculty of Engineering who confirmed that the election was peaceful. From the Faculty of Arts, the students affirmed that the election was free and fair adding that the organization of each polling unit was perfect.
Despite the fact that there were no challenges, the electoral officers of the Lamingo Polling Unit, Faculty of Engineering Polling Unit and Faculty of Arts Polling Unit respectively agreed to the fact that they experienced a low turnout of students. “Most of the students were busy with their lectures and they cannot afford to miss their lectures for voting exercise,” one of them said.
In addition to this problem of students not voting is due to the fact that most of them have less of the materials required for one to vote. According to David Damishi, ‘some student come with only school Identity Cards, some of them are yet to pay their fees, while a majority are yet to pay their Student Union Government dues. As such, they were unable to vote. These factors also caused the poor turnout in Polling’.
The election exercise which was supposed to end at 2 PM at the Lamingo Polling Unit was extended as medical students came after their lecture to cast their votes. This led to the exercise ending late. Listening to one of the students who came to cast his vote, Brian Chisom, he stated that “we cannot leave our lectures simply because of the election. They have to wait for us to finish so we could vote after our lectures considering the fact that we are very busy.”
Notwithstanding, the election process was a success as observed by UniJos Echo as students were seen casting their votes and the whole exercise was well coordinated and organized.
After the election exercise ended, the votes were counted at every polling unit and results of winners from the three campuses were declared.
Luka Haruna Samson was elected President with 1,257 votes, while Blessing Cletus was elected Vice President with 1,468 votes. Samuel Peters was elected Secretary General with 1,299 votes and Enoch Tyulen as Assistant Secretary General with 1,113 votes. Geoffrey Lamwesh was elected Financial Secretary with 1,241 votes, Edna Leshak was elected Treasurer with 1,460 votes, Nankpak Cirfat was elected Public Relation Officer with 1,023 votes, Samuel Uzoma was elected as Director of Sports with 1,165 votes, Jeffery Bawa Mancha was elected Director of Socials with 869 votes and Timothy Panshak as elected Sales Secretary with 1,231 votes.
Photo and editing by JM
