Disruption of the voting process and carting away from the ballot box were, on Friday, recorded in some polling units in Surulere Local Council of Lagos State.
Some political thugs, at about 10am, stormed the polling unit at Karounwin, Soyinka, and Jimoh Ojoku streets in Surulere, where they shot sporadically into the air. As a result of the attack, people queuing to vote fled, including ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Voting resumed a few minutes after the thugs left the scene, only for the thugs to return. The first time, the thugs tore up the voter’s list taped to the wall by the polling unit, but when the thugs came back the second time, they opened the ballot box at polling unit 035 and took some ballot papers.
It is known that after two invasion incidents occurred, the police arrived at the scene. Some soldiers later joined the police to maintain peace and order in the area.
A similar scenario happened in Muyiwa Opaleye and Aguda areas where the voting process was disrupted, but security operatives later restored sanity to continue voting.
A security officer who led some military officers to maintain peace and order in Opaleye Street said five thugs were arrested in connection with the election violence.
At Erinono Primary School, Johnson Bus Stop, the ballot boxes for the presidential election were crushed, while the boxes for the House of Representatives and the Senate were thrown away.
It was observed that security personnel were not assigned to some of the polling units and it gave space to criminals to indulge in violence. It was also noted that in all the polling units where there was violence, there were no security officers on duty when the disturbances occurred.
A resident of Opaleye said: “They threw bottles and started trying to remove the election materials from the Adhoc staff. They threw the printed ballot paper into the gutter, but they picked it up and rearranged it after the thugs left. We know people, yes it was four years ago , said he was going to do it this time and he did. He was a politician walking with political thugs. Unfortunately, there were no security officers at that time. The soldiers came after the thugs left.”
Speaking to The Guardian, one of the soldiers sent to Muyiwa Opaleye said he arrived at the polling unit shortly after the incident. However, he said that when he went to the polling unit, the five thugs who were arrested at the axis also disrupted the election process. “We arrested them and handed them over to the Police,” he said.
Meanwhile, in another polling unit opened in Surulere Local Council, voting was conducted smoothly, although some election officers arrived late to the polling units. Also, a resident of Olatilewa road, Adesanya Adediran Adeyemi, who was ringing the bell, was seen walking from the road to Abimbola road, inviting residents to come out to vote.
However, on many streets in the council, children and young residents can be seen playing football.
It was also found that the number of voters was low. For example, in Polling Unit 033, in Sanya, 45 people have voted out of 305 registered as of 11:23. Similarly, out of 172 registered voters, only 67 people were accredited and voted in Voting Unit 078, Karounwi, Itire at 13:52. In Polling Unit 36 in Itire too, 818 were asked to vote but only 133 voted at 1:53pm.
A resident, Egunjobi Kazeem, said he was wounded in the hand while running away when some thugs attacked Jalan Karounwin. He told them that the thugs were about to destroy the ballot boxes in the unit, but the INEC ad-hoc staff ran to a nearby building. He said that when the polling unit was in front of him, some ballot papers were removed from one of the boxes.
Kazeem said that many citizens who were in the queue to vote did not return after being harassed from the queue by political thugs.