On Saturday 12th February 2022, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted the Area Council election in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
The FCT has 6 Area Councils and elections held in all the areas. Dataphyte visited sixty-one out of 562 PUs and observed the voting process across these polling units in the Area Councils where the elections took place.
Observation of the process raises concerns about INEC’s readiness for the 2023 general elections. Voter attitudes towards the elections also indicate some apathy towards getting involved in the electoral process. Parties still engage in vote-buying secure political offices at all costs.
Voter Turnout
The turnout in some of the polling units visited was relatively low and some units recorded zero voter turnout as late as 1pm. A case in point is PU019 at Abuja University Staff Quarters. The unit had only 5 registered voters and the INEC Adhoc staff told Dataphyte’s team that none had come out to vote as of 1pm. The same was reported in polling units in Zuba and Kwali. For most of the polling units visited in Federal Housing, Nyanya, there was just the INEC staff as no voter was present by 12 noon.
In the 61 polling units visited by the Dataphyte team, 11 had zero voter turnout as at the time of visit. Commenting on the turnout, the PDP agent at PU038 Karu said that the local government and council elections generally have a low turnout. The number of voters present at the PU at the time of Dataphyte’s visit was less than 16% of registered voters.
Challenges Reported
Challenges observed or reported ranged from administrative to technical.
The election which was scheduled to commence by 8 am on Saturday didn’t commence as scheduled in most polling units. Out of 61 polling units visited at different Area Councils, INEC staff punctuality to the polling unit was generally poor. YIAGA Africa’s report on the elections corroborated this.
Dataphyte observed that INEC officials were present by 8 am at just 7 of all the polling units visited.
In accordance with the election guidelines, the electoral umpires deployed the Biometric Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
Dataphyte observed and received reports of BVAS malfunction in almost all the polling units visited. What was not clear was if the challenges encountered with the BVAS were only technical or also a problem of expertise, the ability of INEC Adhoc staff to efficiently use the device. According to INEC Adhoc staff, they were properly trained prior to their engagement, thus all issues reported were technical.
Some of the technical issues include the device not recognising voters’ fingerprints and facial biometrics and problems accessing the database of registered voters.
In PU100 FHA 1, Nyanya, the INEC staff made calls to complain about the BVAS and was told to dismantle and reassemble the BVAS which still failed to respond after the process.
“We are encountering BVAS challenges here due to malfunctioning BVAS”, Al Hassan Shuaibu, a polling unit agent at Sheda Galadima unit at Kwali told Dataphyte. The story was the same at Zuba.
In most of the polling units Dataphyte visited, INEC deployed only one BVAS even though some of the units had a high number of registered voters. YIAGA Africa also noted this in their Midday Situational Statement on the election.
Dataphyte observed that the deployment of one BVAS to polling units with a large number of registered voters slowed down the exercise as noted by some of the voters and party agents who spoke to Dataphyte. This, coupled with the failure/malfunction of the BVAS caused serious delays in the accreditation and voting process.
Electoral Irregularities
The election on Saturday was marred by some irregularities, one of which was vote-buying.
At Kuje ward 01, Central Primary School, some voters alleged cases of vote-buying. Some of the recipients confirmed to Dataphyte that they were given the sum of N500 to vote and mobilize others to do so.
In one of the polling units visited at Bwari, one of the voters who spoke with Dataphyte recounted that she was approached by a party agent to sell her vote for the sum of N2,000. She however said she rejected the offer.
Also, the use of political thugs was reported during the election. In Kwali, Dataphyte’s team were accosted by political thugs.
2023 in View
With 2023 around the corner, off-cycle elections like the FCT elections become a litmus test for INEC’s readiness for the general elections in 2023 as well as assessing voters’ perception and sentiments towards the upcoming elections.
Though this election is a smaller one compared to the general elections happening less than 13 months away, it provides an opportunity to review performance and ask critical questions on INEC’s preparedness as well as design approaches to increase voter participation through civic education.
The BVAS malfunction reported during the FCT elections is not new, this problem was reported in the 2019 general elections and at every off-cycle election since then. It raises questions about how INEC addresses the challenges from previous elections and mitigates those issues to avoid recurrence.
Protection for media personnel against harassment is another important issue that needs to be addressed. In some polling units visited, there was no media presence and the fear of harassment and assault might be some of the reasons for the media’s absence.
While INEC has a lot of work to do in preparation to facilitate free and fair elections in 2023, there exists a great need for vigorous citizen sensitization towards ensuring robust voter participation and media as well as CSOs are critical to citizen engagement.