• voting finally ongoing at Asokoro polling unit 013
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Voting finally commenced 11:15 at Polling Unit 013 Asokoro, Abuja over two hours after the scheduled time of 8:30am.
Some of the over 300 eligible voters who said they arrived as early and 2am, expressed unhappiness at the late arrival of INEC officials for the exercise.
Voting started with senior citizens including former Head of Nigerian Civil Service, Ebele Okeke, and former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Productivity, who had queued up for the exercise, with the first first person voting at 11:35am
Speaking to Daily Sun about the exercise, Agary said “I don’t think INEC was particularly organised. The BVAS were not reading properly, they were problems with identifying names. And finally when you get your BVAS checked and you get your ballot papers, on getting to the booth at least for me the pad had no ink. But good for them, somebody had the good sense of running across to H-medics for the ink pad.
“What kind of inkpad did INEC get that didn’t have ink, because there were all water. And my worry is that the first three voters who voted may not have had ink. Because we had to wait for them to bring ink for the inkpad before we could vote. And at the time I voted which was after 11am, only five people had voted with the crowd there? I doubt if they can manage it.
Continuing she said: I think some INEC officials really need to come round and help those NYSC young people, they need guidance on what to do. Because some people’s cards are not reading. Those young NYSC people really need adult support of experienced INEC officials.
“It is obvious that voters education, voters information we’re not enough. Because some people are there who should have been at Asokoro 02 and there are here. For the next elections, I think we should do better.”
Another voter, who simply identified himself as Adesola, expressed unhappiness with the fact that Senior INEC officials were not around to guide the youth corpers.
He said even though voters turned out early enough, the materials did not arrive until away after 10am.
“It is clear that INEC despite the assurances from the chairman, was not prepared. The corpers are clearly not informed about what to do. And to top it up they had no ink for the inkpad. I had to volunteer to rush to H-Medics to get one. Even though they were not opened, we had to appeal to them before they open the supermarket and attended to us. Thankfully, voting has commenced, let’s see how it goes”.