By Emmanuella Oghenetega
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has lamented over the low turnout in the ongoing Area Council Elections.
The Minister, who toured some polling units interacted with electoral officials.
At a polling unit in Karshi, the minister met a few electoral officials without any voter.
Meanwhile, voting at the AU Suleman 003 polling unit in Abaji Area Council was disrupted after ballot papers were reportedly whisked away, leaving voters angry and perplexed. No voting is currently taking place at the unit, as tensions escalated over the missing ballot papers.
Reports indicate that the incident occurred when an unidentified individual, accompanied by a security personnel, entered the polling venue without proper identification.
A PDP agent, Bala Abubakar Hassan, at the polling unit recounted the events, “Our election was moving successfully here.
“Unfortunately, someone came in with security personnel at his back. I asked him, please, who are you? He said he’s a local government agent but could not provide any identification. I told him to leave. That’s where the crisis occurred,” he said.
According to Hassan, the situation escalated when security personnel reportedly used tear gas, causing voters to scatter. In the chaos, the person responsible for the ballot papers reportedly left the venue, leading to their disappearance.
“Everyone was running, and that’s where the ballot paper was missing,” Hassan added.
Also, voter turnout remained significantly low across several polling units in Gwarinpa and Maitama despite the early commencement of voting and a visible security presence.
At Polling Unit 041, located at Government Secondary School, Gwarinpa, out of 767 registered voters, only 12 had cast their ballots as of 11:39 am.
Similarly, at Polling Unit 004 within the same location, 884 registered voters were expected, but just 14 had voted as of 11:42 am. Polling Unit 039 recorded 11 voters out of 748 registered as of 11:40 am.
Voting commenced around 8 am at Polling Unit 040, where 763 voters were registered. However, only 16 votes had been cast by late morning.
At the Staff Quarters polling unit in Gwarinpa, 24 voters had voted out of 760 registered voters as of the time of filing this report.
Also at Polling Unit 06 in Games Village, which has over 5,000 accredited voters, slightly above 100 voters had cast their ballots as of 12:25 pm.
The trend was similar in Maitama, where turnout remained sparse across multiple polling units.
At Polling Unit 124, Taraba Close, Maitama, only five out of 334 accredited voters had voted as of 12:55 pm. Polling Unit 024 recorded 16 votes from 758 registered voters.
On Cuito Street, Maitama, Polling Unit 125 had six voters out of 355 registered. Another polling unit in the area recorded 12 votes from 498 registered voters.
At Polling Unit 132, Lake Chad Crescent, only six voters had cast their ballots as of 1:20 pm, while Polling Unit 133 recorded just one voter out of 491 registered as of the time of observation.
Despite the low participation across both districts, the elections were being conducted peacefully, with a noticeable security presence maintaining order at the various polling units.
