FCT Polls: INEC Officials Sleep As BVAS Malfunction, Low Voter Turnout Mar Process In Kubwa, Gwarinpa, Lugbe

The ongoing Federal Capital Territory chairmanship and councillorship elections have witnessed low turnout of voters and malfunction of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines, amongst other challenges, across different polling units.

THE WHISTLER visited several polling units in the Kubwa, Gwarinpa, and Lugbe axis, where few voters met on the ground lamented some of the challenges they’re facing in the ongoing election.

In Kubwa, our correspondent visited three polling units clustered around the Byazhin Junction, Kubwa Village, where a total of 1,782 electorates were expected to vote but out of which only five have been able to get accredited and cast their votes.

While INEC officials were present at PU-016 as early as 7:30 a.m, malfunctioning BVAS prevented a few voters who turned out from casting their votes.

Voting was supposed to commence at 8:30 a.m. but as of 11:48 a.m. when this report was filed, only five people out of 1,777 assigned to that polling unit had been able to cast their votes.

A second BVAS deployed to the polling unit posed the same challenge as electorates took turns to try their luck with the device.

One of the voters who didn’t want his name mentioned lamented his frustration to our correspondent, saying: “They should do away with this BVAS and revert to the old style.”

At PU-018, our correspondent observed some INEC officials sleeping due to the failure of voters to come out and partake in the exercise. Only four voters were allocated to the polling unit.

Election officials were similarly seen sitting idly at PU-017 where only one electorate was expected to vote. The voter, a female civil servant, is being awaited as of the time of filing this report.

THE WHISTLER also observed a low turn of voters when our correspondent visited PU-024 in Gwarimpa on Saturday morning.

Our correspondent reports that voting had not commenced as of 9:50 a.m. when he visited the polling unit located inside the Gwarimpa Primary School.

The verification of electoral materials by party observers started at about 9:48 am, while the accreditation and voting commenced afterward.

This website gathered that the delay was due to the late arrival of INEC officials who had faced some logistical issues.

An INEC official told our correspondent that 3,314 registered voters were supposed to vote at the polling unit but only 19 electorates were seen waiting to vote as of 9:50 a.m.

At polling unit 184 in Gwarimpa, 5 people were expected to vote but as of 10:00 a. m., only one of them had shown up.

At PU-183 in the same ward, 5 voters were registered but none was at the venue as of 10:02 a.m. Similarly, no voter was sited at PU-185 as of 10:04 a.m when our reporter visited.

THE WHISTLER visited four polling units in Lugbe, where similar challenges of the late arrival of officials and malfunctioning BVAS were observed.

Our correspondent reports that INEC officials arrived at about 9:23 a.m while accreditation and voting did not commence until after 10:45 a.m in PUs 157, 158, 156, 021.

(Reporting by Tayo Olu, Philip Ukpe and Justina Simon)