There was serious crisis at polling unit 023B located very close to the Ago-Okota Police Headquarter along Ago Palace Way, Lagos after some thugs snatched and burnt ballot papers as voting was on going.
BD Sunday understands that as at the time this incident occurred, there were no Foreign Election Observers or security officials at the polling unit 023 along Ago Palace Way, but Police arrived 10 minutes after the incident and started shooting and releasing tear gas.
When BusinessDay visited the polling booth at around 1:07pm on Saturday, some ‘bad boys’ and political thugs were sighted on Okada and Keke Maruwa taking off in a hurry after causing confusion by throwing stones, pure water and plank that made voters and the officials of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to take to their hills.
On disserting the polling unit due to the confusion, the thugs were able to snatch the ballot boxes and papers, threw them on the floor, pour fuel and set some of the ballot papers ablaze.
On doing that, some angry voters went after the thugs and were able to mob one of the okada’s, drag one of the thugs down and gave him beating of his life till security operatives arrived at the scene of the crime.
Sighting the patrol van of officers of the Nigerian Police Force and the Nigerian Army, the voters started chanting war songs including “We must vote, we must vote and our vote must count.”
Narrating the ordeal, a voter who gave his name as Chukwuma told BD Sunday that the action was a calculated attempt to rob Igbos of their civil right of deciding who the next Nigerian President will be.
“About 80 percent of persons living in Ago-Okota axis are all Igbos and they are strong supporters of People’s Democratic Party (PDP). This incident was an attempt to waste our votes and we will not leave here until we vote. We say no to the actions of these thugs and their benefactors. This is why we told the security officials that we must vote and our votes must count,” Chukwuma said.
According to Chukwuma, majority of the damaged ballot papers showed that many voted in favour of PDP candidates but the action of the thugs destroyed people’s effort. He added that people have been waiting since morning in the scorching sun to exercise their civil right, which seems to have become efforts in futility.
Another angry voter named Joy told BD Sunday, that the three thugs came earlier in the morning but the police officer started shooting at them, and they took off without being able to execute their plans.
“I blame the police for not keeping watch since it had been made known to the residents of Ago that they would not allow them to vote as the bad boys threatened the residents on Thursday that the exercise would be interrupted. We supposed to have restricted movement but it surprised me that these people came with okada and keke maruwa without being noticed,” Joy lamented.
Earlier at Amuwo- Odofin (Festac Extension) area of Lagos, there was massive turnout of voters at the polling units 053, 054 056 where many Nigerians trooped out to decide their next President and National Assembly members.
BD Sunday arrived at polling unit 053B, which recorded large turnout at about 10:00am to discover that INEC officials were not on ground to start the accreditations and voting process. At 10:15am INEC officials arrived at the unit without complete voting materials.
The accreditation and voting proper started few minutes to 11:00am with voter trooping out in their numbers to the polling units. Some officials of Civil Defense Corps and Nigerian Police Force also arrived few minutes later at the venue which had some resemblance of sanity in the voting process.
“I think INEC needs to do more work to automate the voting process because the current arrangement is very clumsy and tedious. It takes close to 30 minutes for just one person to complete accreditation and be able to vote successfully. And I wonder when INEC officials will be able to attend to this crowd on the queue within the allowed voting time,” a voter, who identified himself as Adeyinka Bello, said.
He said that many people have been going from one polling booth to another just to locate where their voting centers are.
“This is demanding and I trekked from Alaba Express to Apple Junction, only to discover that the polling units 053B is not my center. I have gone to Raji Rasaki and the INEC officials have directed to Lakeview Estate. That is where I am going now because I don’t want to hear story. I must vote because I don’t want to buy dollar at N360 again,” Bello said.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
