Edith CHUKU
February 25th Presidential, senatorial and House of Representatives elections have been described as a revolutionary movement, following the massive turnout of voters in the various states of the federation.
Amidst the crowd that besieged polling units all over Rivers State, were the elderly, pregnant women and physically challenged, who of course, were given preference in some voting centres.
In most polling units in the state, electorates did not only cast their votes, but stood their ground, defended their votes against manipulation, from the polling unit down to the RAC centers.
All eyes were fused on the officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and opposition parties, everyone was a suspect, and places were suspicions of rigging arose, uproars were reported.
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Most respondents who spoke with TNN in an exclusive interview expressed excitement over the turnout of residents and their eagerness to exercise their franchise, by casting their vote for their preferred candidate, according to their conscience, discarding orders from their political juggernauts.
In Obio/Akpor and Ikwerre Local Government areas, as covered by our correspondent, the electorate stood their ground all through the voting, collation and counting processes, even as some escorted INEC officials back to the RAC centres as late as 10pm.
In some areas like Ward 14, unit 12, officials of INEC were not allowed to leave, owing to their inability to upload the result with the BVAS. In some places, chaos broke out, people were badly injured, because of the absence of the presidential ballot paper, hence election did not hold.
Investigation confirmed that in some parts of Rivers State, there was no presidential ballot paper; this led to an uproar which hindered the election process that warranted INEC to extend the period of voting for the Presidential and National Assembly elections to Sunday, February 26.
According to INEC, this was necessitated due to the level of violence experienced and ‘tactical disenfranchisement’ (late arrival of election materials) in some areas in Lagos, FCT, Ebonyi, Imo, Anambra, Kano, Edo, Delta, Kogi, Bayelsa, Enugu, Sokoto, Taraba, Abia, Ekiti and our dear Rivers State. Voting in the affected areas were announced to resume by 8am till 12pm.
Our correspondent monitored some areas in Obio/Akpor and Ikwerre Local Government areas, and these were what we gathered in those polling units visited.
OBIO/AKPOR
In Ward 3, Unit 8, 9 and 33, Mgbuori Community, Rumuokwurusi, there was panic, following the alleged network challenge, which INEC officials said prevented the accreditation and voting processes. As at 11:43am, while unit 8 and 9 were having a smooth voting process, only two persons had been accredited and one successfully casted his vote in unit 33.
This almost led to an uproar, but was carefully managed by some of the community youths, led by Mr. Ernest Oyoburuoma Chinda. Agitated electorate who were no longer comfortable with the delay, challenged INEC officials, bemoaning their supposed inability to operate the BVAS, no data, unavailability of network. They also accused INEC officials of coming to the unit with a malfunctioning BVAS.
Pastor Ikechukwu Chisom who spoke with TNN, expressed dismay with the faulty state of the BVAS. He frowned at the unpreparedness of INEC for the election. “Yes, the BVAS is having challenge. In fact, the officials arrived late, around 10:30. Since they arrived, the BVAS has been having challenges. Now, as we speak, only two people have been captured, they are struggling with it, sometimes they say it’s network and all that. I am not happy about this, I can see crowd of people and it’s not moving, some are complaining that they are going home and all that, they have to do something.”
Also, Mr. Ernest Oyoburuoma Chinda explained that “the challenge we are having is network issue in unit 33, we are trying to accredit but the thing is not responding well, so, we are trying to see how we can fix it so that the people in unit 33 can be able to do their vote and go, we are looking at if it will work, we are still struggling for it. Right now, nobody have done accreditation in that unit 33, while election is going on in units 9 and 8, in 33 we are finding it difficult to accredit. The INEC officials are the people complaining network issues, so we are trying to tell them to do something about it, so that people can vote, as you can see, everywhere is filled up, people are out for voting, they should try and fix up the machine, so that people can vote and go home.”
Mrs. Chinwe Ogundu , a pregnant woman who managed to appear at the polling unit to cast her vote informed our correspondent that “I am going nowhere. BVAS oh, network oh, I must vote, I will stay here until I vote. With hunger oh, tiredness oh, I am doing it for my baby, myself and future generation, we are going nowhere.”
One of the INEC ad hoc staff in unit 33 confirmed to our reporter that the BVAS had network challenges, but that they had been rectified.
At ward 13, unit 59, Rumuodalu Community, Rumuola, the concern was the late arrival of INEC officials- by 12:20pm. When approached by our correspondent, the presiding officer said they did not encounter any challenge but was too busy to explain why they arrived two hours and 20 minutes late to the voting point. Fortunately, the electorates, who had waited patiently, assisted in setting up insensitive materials for the process.
According to Mr. Maxwell Worlu, a RAC agent of the APC, ward 4, Rumuodomaya and Mr. Charles Azubuike Ekwe, AA governorship campaign coordinator, for the LGA, it was good news in Unit 003, ward 004 Rumuodomaya Civic Centre.
The APC RAC agent said “the turn-out today was massive; we have never seen this in the history of Nigeria, even 1993, this is the highest, this is hundred per cent in Rumuodomaya. All the parties across the lines have been working accordingly, there is no problem, everything is moving smoothly.” Whether preference was given to the elderly or pregnant women, he said “no, no, no. what we are doing here is everyone exercising his or her franchise because we don’t want to disenfranchise anybody, so, all, whether 18, 19, 100, everybody is on the cue, so, when it gets to you, you vote and go.” On when the election started he said “they started around 10, we will not want that to happen again in governorship and house of assembly elections.”
Azubuike Ekwe, another respondent said “you know that AA has adopted Peter Obi for president. So we are working for him. I think we should praise His Excellency, the president of the federal republic of Nigeria, he has done something reasonable to make sure people vote their conscience, it has been free and fair.” On the issue of buying of votes, he said, “on body here is buying any one naira, everybody is voting his mind and as you can see, here is peaceful, you as a journalist can attest to what I am trying to say, everybody is voting his conscience instead of money, if we see anybody here with money, we will make sure the person is arrested.”
Contrary to their testimonies, Mrs. Uche Chidinma who had a serious argument with one of the officials while she was trying to cast her vote, explained that “at the point of collecting my ballot paper and thumb printing, time for me to insert my vote into the ballot paper, I noticed that one of them, I don’t know what he was, wanted to collect my ballot paper from me, and it’s something I’ve been noticing. So, I was actually waiting for him to do that, and when I refused, he was arguing, and then they asked why, the reason he gave was he wanted to be sure I thumb printed and it didn’t make sense, and I realized when I was on the queue, that he was always doing that, and then before he folds the ballot paper he looks at who you voted. So, I was not ready to let him do that and then after a while, the security agencies told him that he is only to do that for elderly people that don’t know how to fold it, not for a young person, and I noticed that he didn’t do that to the males, because me and the people I was with on queue, actually we were waiting for him because we saw him doing it, so he skipped them and I felt okay.” Is it because I was a female, and after everything he was saying he wanted to help me, but we all know the real reason behind what he did.”
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Ward 14, Unit 013, Eneka had 756 registered voters, with BVAS number 32/15/14/013 A-J. According to the electorate, the process was smooth. Spotted casting his vote with his wife is the Executive Chairman of the Rivers State Universal Basic Education Board Ven. Dr. Fyneface N. Akah. On the election, he said: “It’s another rare opportunity that has come on us after the last four years election and we are glad that we are alive and privileged again to make decision that can put our country on another rail of a train that moves and moves on the positive side. And so, I feel good being a participant, I have cast my vote with my wife this morning and we know that with the help of God Nigeria will turn a new leave politically, economically, socially and in all spheres of the expectation of the citizenry.”
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“We want to thank God on the state of political awareness of our Eneka people today. I’m impressed and gladdened in my spirit by the turnout in our own polling unit here this morning, we have concords of men and women, young and old, and that shows how zealous they are to cast their votes and for this to happen, it does mean that there is a good sense of security and a good sense of peaceable-ness among the people, everything is going on peacefully, and they are happy to participate in the electioneering process.”
Ward 14, Unit 012 Karakara hall, Rumuowha was peaceful, though INEC officials arrived late. The challenge was the inability to upload the result with the BVAS which caused a serious uproar, as the INEC officials were not allowed to leave till about 9pm, when party agents and some electorates escorted them to the RAC center. Result released in this unit showed that for presidency, LP led with 246, APC – 29, PDP – 24. For senate: APC – 20, PDP – 89, LP – 186, ADC – 02, APGA – 02, Accord – 10 & YPP – 02. And for House of Rep – LP – 183, PDP – 80, APC – 29, SDP – 05, YPP – 02, Accord 02, ARN – 01.
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Also, the PDP House of Assembly Candidate for Obio/Akpor Constituency 11, Lady Mrs. Emilia Lucky Amadi, JP, assured our team that herself and PDP supporters will vote for the APC presidential candidate as directed by Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike. “Haven campaigned so well, today is the D-day for us to elect our president, national house of assembly and also, our senatorial candidate. My word and advice to Eneka people, indigenes and non-indigenes is for them to conduct themselves in orderly manner, go out to their polling units and vote the right candidate, PDP. Rivers State is PDP, PDP is Rivers State, but for presidential, we move to the direction our leader, his excellency, the man that has the say as far as PDP is concerned, where he has directed us to vote, we are going to vote there, and it will be well for Rivers people for he will never mislead us, he leads and we follow.”
Are you also asking your party supporters to vote for the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu?
Of course. He will have our vote today, in good number.
Mrs. Amadi’s charge to her Eneka people appeared not to have gone done well following the pandemonium that broke out in Unit 11, Ward 14, Rumuowuta Playground, which got everyone scampering for safety. Electorates were aggrieved following the unavailability of presidential ballot paper. INEC officials in addition to their very late arrived, came with just the senate and house of reps ballot papers, which led to a strong condemnation by the electorates who refused to vote, and this led to a serious riot. Unfortunately, a female corps member on election duty, as INEC official was severely brutalized, as others fled for their lives.
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Assault on female corps Member
In agony, she said “I am waiting for my colleagues to come. They have not come, as the thing happened they ran away. This thing started since morning, trying to explain one particular thing, just one particular thing and they failed to understand us, so they were given the impression that they have bribed us so we now corner side the presidential materials, ballot papers, because they gave us other papers, senate and house of reps, the presidential they did not give us, so we have been waiting for them to bring it so we start accreditation, from morning till now, those people there they don’t want to hear. We have been explaining; this group will come, this group, the way they barricaded us, at some point, we didn’t know what to do, we’ve been calling, calling, please you people should come and rescue us here, bring the paper so we will start, no way, nobody is coming, nobody, what do we do, we cannot leave that place on our own, they will still look for one allegation and say we carried it to go and do one thing, one thing, we had to remain there, with all the number of people that surround us what do we do? (tears) is this our home? No, nobody is listening to us, that thing did not follow us from here to that place, we even opened the BVAS showed them that it’s zero, we showed them everything, there is nothing we did not show them, they said we must open the BVAS to show them, that nobody has been accredited in this unit, which we did, the two BVAS we opened it and showed them that it is zero, nobody.”
Reacting to why they didn’t inspect the materials before going to the polling unit, she said, “they are aware, they shared from one to…some numbers, they said it has finished, presidential has finished, that it’s no longer here, they will have to go to INEC to go and get it, you understand? So, time is going already, so they said we can start going then they will go and get it and bring for us, that people are there, clamouring that where is INEC, where is INEC, that was what happened. I really thank this mummy, God will bless her(points to the woman that rescued her) because I don’t really know what to do, people surround me, this one dragging me, they almost naked me, busy dragging me, I just don’t know, if not for her today I don’t know what to explain to my one year old baby that I left her at home. Throughout the night I did not sleep, after standing in the morning in INEC office to check my name, standing from morning till night, finally we find our name, we started coming here around nine o’clock, we started coming here, from that nine o’clock, it was outside this place that we slept under mosquito, I’ve not tested anything, what will I do with material, what will it benefit me, nobody gave me five naira, if I open my phone now, my account is zero naira, it’s just to put food on my table that was why I brought myself to this kind of problem.”
As at the time of this report, her other two colleagues who fled for their safety, were nowhere to be found. Report has it that the BVAS, ballot box, cubicle, were abandoned at the unit following the incident.
Also, an electorate in the same Ward 14, did put a call across to our correspondent and complained that, “no register, the ballot paper is not complete, no ink for thumb printing, so what are they doing at the polling unit.” Another voice intercepted from his end and the speaker explained that, “the new materials just came in now.” The caller ended the call.
At Choba, Ward 15, Unit 18 and 19 combined together, Mr. Confidence Tuadom explained how some persons were unable to vote because of the rejection of their card by the BVAS. “I am here in Choba, where the voting is supposed to be going on and by the grace of God, the INEC people have been around, although they came late, around past ten to eleven but since then the voting has been going on smoothly, other than the fact that some cards were rejected, due to the fact that, they said they were supposed to have two BVAS in this unit, A and B, the A was supposed to capture some serial number, from zero to 74, while the B was supposed to capture from 75 down to one thousand and something, but those other old registration was not captured because the BVAS is not here and they’ve called the INEC office, they assured us that they are coming with it, but uptill now we’ve not seen it and that has led to the disenfranchisement of so many people, especially those that registered earlier before now, those that have been voting here before now they are not currently voting because the data is not capturing them, other than that every other thing is going on smoothly, everybody is coordinating themselves.”
On the closure of voting exercise allegedly by INEC, Tuadom said, “yes, they were saying that by 2:30 they will stop but we have told them that for the fact that they came late, every other person have been here seated, you can see the canopy outside, we are seated outside there waiting for them to come, they came late like I said, and because of that fact they are supposed to wait till everybody is done voting and that is what they have assured us now and because of that everybody is now calm and the process has continued smoothly.”
Mr. Secondus Uche, an indigene of Choba told the media team that “I stay at Ozuoba, I left my house as early as 6am, because I know there won’t be any vehicle, we has a plan of trekking down to this place. We’ve been here since morning, after a whole long day, I got there, they said not found, I asked why, the excuse the guy gave me was that it’s from zero to 723, that anything above that, it’s in another BVAS, that they have unit 18A and unit 18B, okay, where is the second BVAS machine, they said it’s coming, for the past three hours we’ve been waiting, where is the person, they said the person is not picking the call, what about the SPO, they’ve been calling the SPO, the SPO is not picking, give us the SPO’s number, they refused, the next thing some party agents were saying that the INEC people told them that the second BVAS they are on their way coming from Bayelsa or where to Port Harcourt, INEC materials, they brought some and did not bring others, how? It’s been over six hours, we have not seen the second BVAS.”
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Mrs. Ngozi Uwekwu said “what is happening in unit 18 and unit 19, Ward 15, Choba, what INEC has been telling us is that this unit we are supposed to have two BVAS machines, if this one fails, this one will continue, now, what we found out since morning is that, this is an old unit, it’s one of the oldest units here, most of the BVAS machine is not capturing old cards, most of these women you see that are seated here and some people that are seated inside have not been captured, like me my card was rejected, said no result found, so we’ve reported, nobody since morning, that’s what we are passing through here, that’s why these people are here, the machine is rejecting the old cards and this place we don’t have much of the new people. It’s so sad, because INEC have been telling us that we should all come that the BVAS machine will work, so now most people are been disenfranchised by INEC itself.”
At unit 29, ward 19 in Elekaohia, Elder Johnny Iwezor while expressing satisfaction with the electioneering process and result announced, lamented over voter apathy. “the only problem and challenge I have is that this voters apathy is a serious problem to the South-south, because we don’t come out, politics is a game of numbers, and when people don’t come out, you win by small fraction, you rejoice, you’ve not done anything while in the North their people will come out, you can imagine in a place where you have about 900 and something people that are registered voters and you are only getting less than hundred coming to vote, or less than 70 coming to vote, for me it’s not good at all, so, if we come out en mass according to how we are registered, we should be rejoicing that we have something, but where people don’t come out and you are rejoicing that you won with ten and twenty in a polling unit where you have almost one thousand registered voters, I mean we should change, this is why we are not going anywhere and by the time you gather the whole votes, it is nothing to compare with the North and other places, we are not voting, even in this hardship that people are not eating, they should have used that annoyance to come out and exercise their franchise, but they stayed at home, God will not do everything for us.”
TNN also stopped over at Unit 8, Ward 8B Mgbuoba hall, where The Reverend Ugochukwu Tithe Uchewunne explained that “the electorate are willing to vote, they have been here since eight and the electoral materials and the INEC officials arrived very late, they arrived around after eleven. We don’t know what is slowing the process, people have been here, under the rain and they are willing to vote but the process is not going as supposed, the security agencies are here, I have talked to them, but it’s as if there is a kind of special interest in this particular unit.”
Physically challenged Mr. Prince Apiafa, from Opobo, who was spotted on crutches, faulted the man power. According to him, “the process is going well, but what I observed here is the man power is not much, because what I was thinking is that here is supposed to be like two, because if you observe this particular unit is a very unit inside the Ward 13, so that is why the thing is going slow. I’ve been here since nine O’clock, after waiting I had a call from my wife at home so I had to go and attend to her. I took my bath and came back because I must cast my vote. The kind of things we are seeing in the country for the past eight years, we are really determined to change the narrative, that’s why I took it upon myself, I am going nowhere, I must vote.”
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For Unit 5, ward 8, in Asari-Toru LGA, electorates expressed excitement over the process, which they described as peaceful. According to report, materials arrived in the LGA on time, distributed evenly without any trouble. Accreditation and voting went simultaneously.
Ikwerre LGA
At Aluu Clan, Chief Alhaji Hassan Welewa, Paramount Ruler, Omuokiri Community, who was seated with some elders of the community, spoke on the peaceful disposition of the voting populace. He said “the turnout is very, very good, very good, it’s not like other days, where people will be carrying ballot boxes, gun will be shooting here and there, you can see the atmosphere, everybody is happy, I am very, very impressed, we have voted and defended our rights.”
On whether he voted party or his conscience, he said, “I voted my conscience (laughs) I will not vote someone I don’t know, I don’t like, that will turn Nigeria upside down tomorrow, so, we vote through our conscience, we feel that the person God wants will emerge.”
Other electorates who spoke well of the process, as at when it began, as well as expressed their expectations includes, Mr. Williams Hart from Bonny Local Government Area, based in Port Harcourt, who was managing to use his feet, supported with a walking stick. Another is Mr. Vincent Bobo Okeke.
