Today’s landmark FCT area council elections witnessed late commencement in parts of the territory.
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In some wards and polling units (PUs) visited by our correspondent for the elections, many did not commence accreditation and voting as of 9:10 am. Only a few election officials and ad-hoc staff arrived at the PUs at 8.00 am.
Voting was originally scheduled to begin by 8:30 am and to end by 2.30 pm.
However, at the Masalachi Junction, (PU006) in Karu, Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), electoral officials and voters did not arrive the PU as of 9:10 am. Only security operatives were on the ground at the time.
The same was the case in other areas of the metropolis.
Also, at the Damagaza Settlement PU around Kabusa Junction in AMAC, the election commenced at 9:15 am with 12 voters seen on the queue.
Security officials were, however, on the ground while INEC ad-hoc staff were also seen trying to set up their voting cubicles.
…Faulty BVAS compound woes
Aside from the late arrival of INEC officials and materials in some PUs, there were widespread of complaints about the faulty Bimodal Voters Authentication System (BVAS) machines.
The BVAS, which replaced the Smart Card Reader (SCR), has the dual capacity for fingerprint and facial identification to prevent the use of stolen voters’ cards or impersonation.
In some of the PUs in Area 2, voters were seen complaining about the BVAS.
One of the voters, who simply identified himself as Boniface, said he has spent over two hours at the polling unit but was yet to get accredited due to the faulty BVAS.
All the five PUs in the area have the BVAS complaint.
Daily Trust spoke with some of the election officials, including two presiding officers, who confirmed that the BVAS was not working smoothly.
“The machine (BVAS) is not working smoothly, it detects some faces and would not respond to fingerprint and also would not recognise some registered voters despite having their permanent voters card (PVCs) and their names on the register.
“I have however reported this to the appropriate authority and we are awaiting a replacement of the machine,” one of the officials told Daily Trust.
When our correspondent visited the INEC FCT office, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Alhaji Yahaya Bello, was said to have gone out on inspection and to also attend to other ‘field matters’ pertaining to the election.
The Head of Department (HoD) Voter Education and Publicity (VEP) was also not around as she went on monitoring.
However, two officials, who cannot be named, said the commission was aware of the challenges, and appropriate officials have been deployed to address the situation.
“You can see that our bosses have gone out on the complainants. The issues are being addressed,” one of the officials said.
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