Voting process disrupted, ballot boxes carted away in Surulere

Disruption of the voting process and carting away of ballot boxes were, on Saturday, recorded in some polling units in Surulere Local Council of Lagos State.

Some political thugs, around 10 am, invaded polling units at Karounwin, Soyinka, and Jimoh Ojoku streets in Surulere where they shot sporadically into the air. As a result of the assault, those who were in the queue to vote ran away, including the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) ad-hoc staff.

Voting recommenced some minutes after the thugs left the scene, only for the thugs to return again. During the first visit, the thugs tore the voters’ list pasted on the walls by the polling units, but when the thugs returned the second time, they opened the ballot box at polling unit 035 and took away some ballot papers.

It was learnt that it was after the two incidents of invasion had happened that policemen arrived at the scene. Some soldiers later joined the policemen maintaining peace and order at the scene.

The same scenario happened in Muyiwa Opaleye and Aguda areas where the voting process was disrupted, but security officers later restored sanity for voting to continue.

A security officer who led some military officers to maintain peace and order at Opaleye Street said that five thugs were arrested in connection with election violence.

At Erinono Primary School, Johnson Bus Stop, the ballot boxes for the presidential election were smashed, while the boxes for the House of Representatives and Senate were carted away.

It was observed that security personnel were not deployed to some polling units and that gave room for the miscreants to perpetrate violence. It was also noted that in all the polling units where there was violence, there was no security personnel on duty at the time the disruption happened.

A resident of Opaleye said: “They threw up bottles and started attempting to dislodge the election materials from the Adhoc staff. They threw already print ballot papers inside the gutter but were later picked up and rearranged after the thugs left. We know the guy, he did it four years ago, said he was going to do it this time and he did. He is a politician who moves around with political thugs. Unfortunately, there was no security personnel at the time. The soldiers came shortly after the thugs left.”

Speaking to The Guardian, one of the soldiers deployed to Muyiwa Opaleye revealed that they got to the polling units shortly after the incident. He, however, said that on their way to the polling unit, five thugs arrested along the axis were also disrupting the voting process. “We arrested and handed them to the Police,” he said.

Meanwhile, in other polling units visited in Surulere Local Council, voting went on smoothly, though some of the election officers arrived late to their polling units. Also, a resident of Olatilewa Street, Adesanya Adediran Adeyemi, who was ringing a bell, was sighted marching from his street into Abimbola Street, calling on residents to come out to vote.

However, across many streets in the council, children and young residents were seen playing football.

It was also observed that there was a low voter turnout. For instance, at Polling Unit 033, in Sanya, 45 persons had voted of the 305 registered as of 11:23 am. Similarly, of the 172 registered voters, only 67 persons got accredited and voted at Polling Unit 078, Karounwi, Itire at 1:52 pm. At Polling Unit 36 in Itire too, 818 were expected to vote but only 133 voted as at 1:53 pm.

A resident, Egunjobi Kazeem, said he got injured in the hand while running away as he fell escaping when some thugs invaded Karounwin Street. He disclosed that the thugs would have smashed the ballot boxes in his unit but the INEC ad-hoc staff ran away with them into the nearby building. He said the polling unit opposite his, some ballot papers were removed from one of the ballot boxes.

Kazeem disclosed that many of the residents who were in the queue to vote did not return after they were harassed off the queue by political thugs.