Abuja residents shun polling booths on election-day

…Say their votes did not count Feb. 23
The streets of Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital territory are empty on election day as residents are at home, refusing to come out and cast their votes like they did, massively, on February 23, for the Presidential election.

This time, when they are supposed to elect Chairmen for the sic area councils, the residents say they have no reason to go and vote when their votes did not count the last time they voted.

Polling officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Vivian Uzoukwu and Joseph James said some voters told them that Nigerians were cheated on February 23 and therefore would not waste their times again.

“Some people told me that they will not come to vote, that we should do the voting ourselves because the person that they voted the last time was robbed,” she said but refused to name the person that was ‘robbed.’

At the Jikwoyi Primary school with nine polling booths, Joseph James said he was shocked that voters refused to turn out. He said over 2,000 people voted at the Nine booths but that less than 200 have voted so far, by 11 am, two hours to end the process.

At CBN Junction Karu, INEC Officer, Nwankwo John, said the turnout of voters is about 10 percent of the number that voted on presidential Election Day.

“If I want to be generous, I will say 10 percent. But I know it is not up to that. See us sitting down and nobody is here to vote. It is not for me to determine why they are not coming but that is the reality,” he said.

However, a resident of Karu, Nwoche Lawrence, who actually voted at Unit 012 Karu junction said only about one percent of voters have voted as at 11.30am.

“It is total blackout today. The turnout is zero. Just about one percent and it speaks bad of where we are now. We are back to square one. I had to force myself to come out because none of my neighbours came out to vote,” he said.

But an election observer, Juliet Ifoghale of Women and Youths Support Forum said the very low turnout voters may have been caused partly by the fact that Abuja residents don’t have much at stake in the current election

“Some have said it was because their votes didn’t count the last time so they decided not to show up. But there are other reasons, one of which is that majority of Abuja residents are from others states.

They are not indigenes of FCT so they feel, it does not matter who occupies the area councils as chairmen. It is unlike states where governorship and state assembly elections are going on. Here, it is like a no man’s land.

They have voted for who becomes president and don’t care much about area councils because, in the real sense, what can the area councils do for Abuja residents,? She concluded.