My Review of the Presidential/Senatorial and House of Reps Election
It is no doubt that, to a large extent, in many polling units, election was conducted peacefully. In my polling unit (PU), it was peaceful as well, left for quarrels in the queue. I feel INEC should be commended for this. The introduction of Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) has really made voting so easy and rigging difficult. However, there are few lapses I feel INEC should work on.
INEC should employ more ad-hoc/permanent staff for its job. It is sad that despite INEC being visibly understaffed, they deliberately decided not to select some personnel for the job. These reasons are best known to them. I can say that I have friends who took part in the three-day training and were not selected, and there were polling units that lacked polling officials.
For instance in my unit, we didn’t see our Assistant Presiding Officer (APO III). We called this guy, at first his number didn’t go through, later it rang unpicked. Assistant Presiding Officer II (APO II) and I alongside Presiding Officer (PO) did a tedious work that would have been easier if APO III were around. APO III should be the queue controller.
It wasn’t easy controlling these people mehn. At some point, I was mildly intimidated when I said elderly people should be attended to first. E be like say I dey follow INEC training gbagba.
Come and see how everyone dey claim old. But I overcame the intimidation. Thank goodness, one of the youth leaders coordinated the crowd. There was no Supervisory Presiding Officer (SPO) as well and Registration Area Technology (RATECH). None of them strolled our Polling Unit and even the ones nearest to us.
At some point, we needed them to be present when we wanted to count votes. We had to proceed when people’s grievances were getting to our ears. I also had an issue with the BVAS: I mistakenly exported accredited data before the end of accreditation. Omo, come and see sweat for my body. Thank God for bad network, the kind beating wey I go chop ehn ????
Another area I want INEC to look into is the issue of logistics in terms of transportation. Our team came to the polling unit past 9. The earlier the poll starts, the better, especially for polling units with many registered voters.
Lastly, the issue of security should not be taken lightly. Let me tell you, forget all the promises by the FG that there would be a tight security at PU. In my PU, only one police officer manned more than two polling units. If it was a violent-prone area, you know what could have happened.
How did election go in your area?