Many residents in Lagos turned out to exercise their rights on Saturday to vote for candidates into the National Assembly.
In Ikorodu, the day
began with myriad of voters arriving at the polling centres before 8am
with some of them coming with their meals and chairs for the day.
However the electoral officers and materials did not arrive until about
three hours after the scheduled time.
Voters were seen assembling at the various polling centres in Eyita, Ebute and Ayanbure.
When NEXT visited
the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at
Ita Elewa in Ikorodu at 10:15am, youth corps members that have been
assigned as electoral officers were gathering to collect their
materials for the elections.
NEXT gathered that
the electoral materials only arrived at the INEC office at 8am and
distribution was going on individually as at when NEXT got there.
The corps members
were also not provided with adequate logistics to convey them to the
polling centres as some of them were seen around the office waiting for
buses. Some of them eventually resolved to trek to their locations
which was nearby. No security operative was seen around the corps
members and neither was any officer accompanying them.
Speaking to NEXT,
one of the corps members, Emeka Obazie was disappointed at the
challenges of the electoral body and he said, “we have been told to
drop the materials and run away if anything happen.”
Challenges of accreditation
The accreditation
of voters commenced at about 11am and another round challenges
surfaced. Most of the people who registered a couple of weeks ago were
denied accreditation for a number of reasons ranging from absence of
names to problems of finger prints.
At Solomade ward 1
in Ikorodu and other parts, none of the registered voters could find
his/her name in the register that was brought by the electoral
officers, hence no accreditation held at the polling booth. Adenike
Fowora raised an alarm that “no results must be released for this ward”
as she asked “why will our names not be in the register that we
verified less than a month ago?”
At Ayanbure ward 1, only 128 voters were accredited out of the 1203 registered voters.
Reactions
Abike Dabiri-Erewa,
who is representing Ikorodu Federal constituency at the House of
Representative under the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria
(ACN) was accredited with members of her family.
Just as the voting was about to commence at the Ayangbure ward, the announcement of the election filtered in.
Mrs Dabiri-Erewa
however was disappointed with the postponement “this has a lot of
consequences for those of us that are candidates because we’ve put in
so much and its being a very-very expensive venture this time around
and there has been so much violence. I don’t know what will happen in
these few days.” She said. “This is very disappointing. Its a big set
back” she continued adding that there are very serious implications for
postponing elections to another day.
“Here in Ikorodu,
we started late but we have been able to achieve some level of calmness
but now some people can go back to plan more evil, it is really very
disappointing” Voters subsequently dispersed in anger. Some could not
hide their disappointment: “After waiting in the hot sun for almost
half of the day, INEC now wasted our time. They had better get it right
on Monday, or else..” One of them said.
Sonnie Irabor, a
broadcaster who was at the polling unit 17 in Lekki Phase two while
reacting to the cancellation said: “Those whose names did not appear on
the register must know why. How are they going to rectify all the
abnormalities witnessed. Whatever, they need to do, even if it is 48
hours, they should do so. Jega cannot take all the blame alone, the
State RECs too should take part.” Some voters in Lekki, Lagos urged the
National Assembly to set up a panel of enquiry to investigate how the
money given to INEC was spent.
REC denies ballot manipulation
Meanwhile, Kunle
Ogunmola, the Lagos State Resident Electoral Commission (REC) has
denied claims that the ballot papers carry duplicated party symbols.
Mr Ogunmola made
the comment in reaction to some reports that the ballot papers contain
Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Action Congress (AC). The message
circulated through social media read:
“Voting Alert!
Please inform people that on d Ballot paper there are 2 parties AC
ACN and both having d broom as its symbol. It’s a ploy to confuse
people and reduce the votes of ÀCN. Please tell your people to vote ACN
only.”The inspection team of the REC also passed through Mushin. Heavy
police and military presence observed with armoured tanks. Very tight
security noticed.
Police secure flash points
The new Lagos State
police commissioner, Sulaiman Abba deployed more officers to areas of
the state considered to be flash points.
Mr Abba said the
offices of the command are well prepared and motivated to “protect the
integrity of the electoral process.” He added that officers have been
reinforced in flash points like Ikorodu, Mushin, Oshodi. He warned
hoodlums to stay away from the polling boots and pleaded with the
electorate to be peaceful and patient with the electoral officers.
Ganiyu Dawodu, the
deputy inspector general of police during a visit to the INEC office in
Lagos apologised for the initial logistics hiccups in getting police
escorts for some accreditation materials which caused delays in some
areas. He assured that subsequent elections will be better.
Lagos State has about 6.2 million registered voters.
