I went to vote in my old location which is part of Mushin LG/Odi Olowo LCDA.
Unlike the presidential election when we had to form long queues and I only got to vote early because we activated the Senior Citizen ‘act’, today the centre was like a ghost town.
Instead of voters, we had mostly party agents, some of whom were sharing money to those they could attract. Quite disappointing considering the hour we had to wake up this morning to beat the restriction take off time and the distance we had to cover to get to our voting area.
No queue in sight. Straight to the accreditation table where of course the card reader kept repeating ‘verification failed’ just like last time (or is authentication failed?) but we had to thumb print the voters register and provide phone numbers. Then straight to polling booth and out of the whole place in less than 10 minutes.
So where were the voters of 2 weeks ago? They got scared of anticipated violence or intimidation? Hmmm.
I hope we won’t have report of full voting at that station at the end of the day.
How’s your end?
Voting is continuing. A friend just sent a message that voting materials are just being delivered to their booth after 1pm. And then, there are reports of adhoc INEC staff on strike in parts of Lagos like Ojodu Berger and Amuwo Odofin due to non-payment of their presidential election allowance.
INEC MUST BUCKLE UP!.
Ogie Eboigbe, veteran journalist, broadcaster and public affairs specialist writes and analyses current and historical issues with a ‘wise pen’.
