Yiaga Africa, CSO Raise Concern Over FCT Council Polls

Yiaga Africa has released its preliminary report on the FCT area council polls and has expressed reservations about the integrity of the ward coalition, which will begin shortly.

The organisation said it observed some critical lapses in the exercise, like the late arrival of election materials in some polling units, late notification of change of voting units to voters whose voting units had been moved due to an increase in the number of people at a voting unit.

It said every serious voter apathy was observed in most areas monitored, while it noticed the non-availability of critical voting materials in some polling stations.

Yiaga Africa also noticed that the deployment of security agencies seriously hampered the movement of election observers.

The civil society organisation said, although its observations are a preliminary report, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has to do more to engage the people by giving them adequate information, and also improve its logistics value chain, which is very flawed.

Meanwhile, another coalition of civil society organisations called Ballot Eye has also raised similar concerns on the last-minute change of voting stations for many potential voters, which its observers say led to many voters being disenfranchised.

They therefore called on INEC to give an explanation as to the last-minute change of voting stations, and also immediately deploy voter support mechanisms to help voters locate thier reassign poling units.

They also raised concerns about what they called a high level of voter apathy. It said in some polling stations monitored in Gwarinpa, a polling station with a strength of about 750 voters had only 19 people voting in the elections.

Ballot Eye also noted the late arrival of materials in places like Kayada in Kuje, Junior Secondary School Durumi 1, Government Secondary School Gwarinpa, Rugan Fulani in Bwari, and Abaji East Primary School.