The popular song came handy last Saturday for Hannatu, her mates and many others who waited several hours at the Low Cost Housing Estate polling unit along Shendam road in Lafia with the hope of casting their votes only for their aspirations to be dashed at the last minute. By the time the news of the postponement trickled in, Hannatu and co had spent over four hours.
“We came to the polling unit at about 7am and now it is well past 11, only for us to hear that they have cancelled the election,” she retorted. They had come to the polling unit with mats, benches, chairs and local stools “to wait until the exercise is concluded.”
Like the situation at the Low Cost polling unit, anger and frustration trailed Saturday’s botched attempt by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct the National Assembly polls across Nasarawa State Saturday. In some locations in Nasarawa Eggon, Akwanga, Keffi and Wamba local government areas, violent reactions were expressed as youths pelted vehicles with INEC’s election duty stickers and those with government number plates. The violence however did not degenerate as elders around intervened. Beyond the anger and frustration, however, analysts were unanimous that Nigerians are determined to take their destiny in their hands by ensuring that the anomalies that characterised past elections in the country are checked.
“The mood this time around is amazing. Nigerians are determined to ensure that things go right”, an observer told Daily Trust.
Across the state, people started trooping to the polling units as early as 7 am on election day and were seemingly determined to wait for the final hour. The conduct, observers agreed, unlike previous elections, was orderly. In some polling units across Akwanga and Nassarawa Eggon local government areas, community members initiated self accreditation of eligible voters in the area when electoral officers failed to show up for the process on the scheduled time of 8am.
In most local government areas across the state, including metropolitan centres like Lafia, Akwanga and Keffi, electoral officers did not show up for the commencement of the exercise, even minutes to 11:30 when the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Ahmad Makama passed the decision of Abuja to suspend the elections.
But voters resolved to remain at polling units, leading to agreements among them for some educated community members to co-ordinate all voters. They then produced plain sheets of papers which they used in taking down names of all registered voters and queued up to await the arrival of INEC officials. “We were not officially mandated to carry out this accreditation. But we decided on our own, after a unanimous agreement by community members who have trooped out to this place to vote today; we agreed that we will write down our names, and wait for election officers to come. They will hand the list to them so that there will not be further delay. If they refuse, well, we cannot compel them to accept it. We are only trying to beat the delay. You can see it is past 11 now and nobody has come here to start the process of accreditation”, a community elder at Medical Centre polling unit of Ginda Ward in Akwanga said.
Elder Ma’aji Aliko, the elder who was in company of a group of over 20 elders who stayed on and supervised the self accreditation, said, “you can see for yourself that everybody in this community wants to vote; women, youths, elders; everybody. Yet there are no election officials here yet.”
Even when the news of the cancellation of the polls which first started as a rumour started filtering in, they refused to leave the election venues. Some hours after INEC confirmed the postponement, many of the voters insisted that the announcement was not enough for them to leave the polling stations.
“Unless there were some ulterior motives by some politicians to use their agents in misleading the voters, there cannot be any reason for the cancellation,” a voter told Daily Trust at Alushi ward in Nassarawa Eggon local government area.
As the reality of the cancellation dawned on the voters, one of the worries expressed was the security of the materials already in circulation. Not even the assurance by Makama that “there will be no course for alarm because we can easily withdraw these immediately,” could assuage some voters and some political parties. Accreditation had commenced in some polling units in Kefi and Nasarawa towns before the news of the cancellation came in.
Makama said only about 5 per cent of the materials were in circulation before the directive was made public. However, stakeholders are in doubt whether the materials will ever be retrieved intact, while pointing at lapses that would make such impossible.
One other concern raised by stakeholders especially the opposition CPC in the state is the alleged appointment “of known Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) supporters and officials as electoral officials in the botched election. The party’s state chairman, Haliru Haruna, while addressing newsmen weekend in Lafia accused the state office of INEC of conniving with the ruling party to rig the elections.
However, Makama had denied knowledge of the existence of such staff, noting that recruitment was done in compliance with laid down regulations. Another concern expressed is the issue of movement of electoral officers to their respective polling units. Haruna pointed out that presiding officers were left to the vagaries of the PDP local government controlled officials and urged INEC to address the anomaly before the rescheduled election date. He also urged the commission to post supervisors used during the last registration exercise to different destinations as doing so will reduce incidence of rigging.
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Rescheduled polls: Nasarawa voters losing hope