The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Council election which held Saturday was characterised by low voter turnout, dysfunctional and failed Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) devices as well as late arrival of officials for the commencement of the exercise, despite assurances by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) that the polls would be better than past ones.
There are a total of 1.373 million registered voters in the FCT spread across the six Area Councils, 62 Wards, and 2,822 Polling Units in the Territory.
But BusinessDay observed that less than 50percent of the voters especially in the city center, comprising, Asokoro, Garki, Wuse, Maitama, Wuse 2, Jabi, Gwarinpa turned out to exercise their franchise.
Hours after the election finally commenced behind schedule – due to the late arrival of voting materials and INEC officials- very few or virtually no voters were seen at most of the Polling Units (PUs) especially the newly created ones.
When BusinessDay visited the PUs at the PTF Estate in Wuse 2 and Onitsha Crescent in Asokoro, there were no voters, though the poll officials including, security operatives were on the ground.
Also at PU 005 -Garki Village, New Primary School School II just about 25 voters out of the 2, 983 registered voters were on the queue. Only 38 votes were cast at PU004 -Old Karu palace with a total of 2,850 voters while only one registered voter who identified himself as Maro Damian turned out at the PU 051-FCDA quarters after 12 noon.
At PU02- Garki by Wine Shop, none of the seven registered voters turned up as at the time BusinessDay visited, just as observed at the newly created PUs 011 and 025 located at Nyanya market and Morning Star Hotel, Nyanya in the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC).
“We have this long-standing issue of non-indigenes not wanting to come out and vote during area council elections,” said a voter who simply identified himself as Ahmed.
The creation of new PUs also disenfranchised many voters, some of whom were unaware of their new polling units and were turned back by officials.
Habakkuk Ibrahim, a PDP Agent at the polling unit 027, Kuje, said many voters who were unable to “locate their polling units due to poor sensitisation by the electoral body, went home frustrated.”
Similarly, in polling units, 37/02/02/003, Kuduru Ward, Bwari Area Council outside the city center, voting commenced at about 10 am, but barely 30 persons had voted as at 12:40 pm. That PU has a total of 2642 registered voters.
Though, the situation, BusinessDay gathered was better in some outskirts of Karshi in AMAC; Kuje, Gwagwalada, Bwari and Kwali Area Councils.
Apart from the low turnout of voters, the election was equally characterised by dysfunctional BVAS that have been deployed for both fingerprint and facial authentications during accreditation.
In most of the Polling Units monitored, the devices were either not capturing voters’ fingers and faces or were slow, thereby delaying accreditation and voting. The Kuduru PU for instance had only one BVAS machine for hundreds of voters who gathered. BusinessDay keenly observed that it could take up to 5 minutes to capture and verify one person.
At PU 001, PU 002, and PU 025 in Nyanya Market, the BVAS were not effective, and the same for PU 05-Gwarinpa where the device could only capture 20 voters to cast their ballot. The Unit has about 1837 registered voters. Also, as at the time BusinessDay visited PU 001-Garki Dispensary, only 17 persons had voted out of 1965 registered, while at PU 017-Ugwan-Bawa in Nyanya a good number of voters turned but could not exercise their franchise for the same reason.
In Kuchiko/old GSS 004 polling unit, the BVAS machine broke down for at least one hour leaving voters stranded, there was also a very poor internet connection. The entire process was very disorderly despite the presence of security operatives. The situation was the same for Zango and Guto polling units, where voters expressed deep concerns that they may not have the opportunity to exercise their franchise.
One of the voters, Maimuna Hassan, who lamented that she had to abandon her business to participate in the voting, said the poor functioning of the BVAS was quite frustrating and contributed to many abandoning voting.
“We are tired; many of our women who came here since morning have gone home. I am just staying back because I want my Chairman to win,” she said.
Some of the Presiding Officers, mostly members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) who spoke on condition of anonymity, complained that the inefficiency created by the BVAS was very frustrating.
“The whole thing is frustrating. The BVAS are very slow in that it takes more than 10 minutes to accredit one voter. Sometimes, the device will not even capture the fingerprints and faces of the voters. This has made some of them go back. We are thinking of calling the Registration Centre Officials for a solution,” one of the Presiding Officers told BusinessDay.
The inefficiencies are despite the assurances by INEC that it had reviewed the performance of the BVAS in the recent Anambra State governorship election with a view to improving them for optimal performance in the FCT Polls.
INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu at the last extended stakeholders meeting ahead of the FCT election on Tuesday said lessons learned from the Anambra election had been considered in planning for the Area Council election.
“The BVAS have been configured and ready to deploy for the election. We have also made adequate arrangements for technical support and transportation to speedily respond in the unlikely event of glitches,” he said.
Also, there was the late arrival of officials and materials for the election which caused the exercise not to commence, well over one hour after the PUs were supposed to open for accreditation and voting.
In fact, two hours after the 8:30 am scheduled time for the commencement of the 2022 chairmanship and councillorship elections, voting was yet to commence in the 6 area councils, reason being the non-arrival of INEC officials at the various polling units.
Accreditation and voting were scheduled to start at 8:30 am and close at 2:30 pm but that was not so, as most of the polling units visited by our Correspondent had not opened at the time while the voting continued after the period earmarked.
A visit to most of the centers in Nyanya, Karu, Jikwoyi, Kpeghi, Asokoro, Garki, and Kuduru communities in the Abuja Municipal Area Council, showed no presence of men and materials. In some centers canopies were yet to be erected.
The story was said to be the same in all the other five Council areas according to our correspondents.
However, security agents made up of Police, Civil Defence and Road Safety were seen at the various polling units visited. There was a massive “show of force” by men of the military and other security agencies around the metropolis ostensibly to ward off criminal elements.
For instance, at PU 145- Mr. Biggs, Lugbe, the poll officials arrived at 12:45 pm and could not meet a few of the 1,844 registered voters in the unit who had left before their arrival just as the officials also arrived late at 006 -Area C1, 043 -Police Post and 044 -Angwandadi in Nyanya.
A visibly angry party agent, Musbau Ismail told BusinessDay at the Karu Civic center polling unit that he and his colleagues have been waiting for INEC officials since 7 am.
“My brother as you can see, nothing is happening here. We have been here waiting for them and the materials since 7 am till now 9.05 am,” said.
BusinessDay had earlier reported that the delay was not unconnected with the protests of ad-hoc staff engaged for the exercise over alleged non-payment of their training allowances and replacement by relatives of staff of INEC, Collation, and Returning Officers.
Read also: Abuja area council polls in photos
It was, however, observed that the polls were generally peaceful as there were no incidents of violence or disruption of the process as at the time of this report except a middle-aged woman allegedly killed by a supporter of one of the political parties who knocked her down with a motorcycle.
The incident happened close to the PU048 -Salasi, opposite Post Office, Karu in AMAC when the woman, a prospective voter was attempting to cross the road to her polling unit.
The party supporter whose details are still sketchy was recklessly riding on a motorcycle adorned with the flag of his political party.
The killer motorcycle rider was immediately apprehended and handed over to security operatives deployed for the election, hence averting the breakdown of law and order.
BusinessDay further noticed an incidence of vote-buying at Jamb headquarters car park unit 10 when a former Senate President of Nigeria, shared some cash to youths which caused chaos and great disorderliness. In polling unit 37/02/02/003, some party agents were giving voters N1,000 and N500 which almost caused commotion.
Furthermore, Covid-19 protocols such as physical distancing and use of face masks were not observed by voters who queued up at most of the PUs visited but the poll officials had hand sanitizers and other protective items provided by INEC.
More so, restriction of movement was not strictly enforced as usually done at elections due to the conflicting reports from the FCT Command of the Nigeria Police Force; one allowing movement and the other restricting movement.
The Command had on Thursday announced restriction of movement within the Territory for Saturday, from 12 am to 4 pm, but in a dramatic twist, it canceled the order.
However, in a statement issued Friday by Josephine Adeh, the Command Spokesperson, residents were asked to go about their normal duties, which many of the residents claimed they were not aware of.
