Remember the list INEC released of registered voters in the different states of the country and our predictions?

Well, it so happens that the list was not as important as we thought it was.

In an earlier post, I had mentioned that the turnout in my polling unit was low. It was the first thing I noticed the moment I walked into the government school where I had been assigned to cast my vote. I had at first thought that it was because we had come late, but upon enquiry, was informed that the officials had in fact only come 30 minutes before our arrival.

I was still on the line to cast my vote when the official in charge of verifying our cards with the card reader announced that her work was done for the day. This was just a little over an hour since we had been there. By the time I was leaving, no one was coming in to cast their votes.

This situation was not alien to my polling unit. As I walked around with my neighbor observing the voting process, we noticed that the turnout was rather low. What we noticed instead were crowds of people, mostly men who usually stood a few meters from the polling centers, observing. They only entered when the votes were being counted with their writing materials, recording how many votes were cast for the APC and PDP and transmitting this information to whoever was at the other end of their telephone conversation.

This situation has been given a name: voter apathy.

But were Nigerians really unconcerned about the elections?

I beg to differ.

Nigerians were particularly keen about this year’s elections. When the herdsmen killings became a menace in states like Benue, Nigerians came to the conclusion that they had had enough of this current administration. It did not help that the government sounded exactly like the past administration when it eventually decided to address the issue. We had dealt with recession, which to be fair was not exactly the fault of the government; we had had to put up with the government’s unhelpful financial policies; we had listened in dismay to the president go out of the country and embarrass us with near-idiotic phrases; and as though all this were not enough, we could not sleep for fear of being murdered while our eyes were closed.

Nigerians had had enough.

And it reflected in the number of registered voters and those who picked up their Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC). In 2015, the total number of registered voters stood at 68,833,476, 15,170,608 people less than the 2019 list.

So what could have caused the ‘apathy’?

1. Difficulty in picking up the PVC. I know quite a number of people who were unable to pick up their PVCs, especially those who had either registered prior to the 2015 elections, or those who were living in specific areas, like Ikorodu.

My mum went repeatedly to the INEC office at Ikorodu, and each time, she and so many other people were told to come back. This was the information they kept getting until the deadline for the collection of PVC had passed. But Ikorodu is not the only affected area. I have gotten complaints from friends who could not get their PVCs despite repeated visits to the local government or INEC offices.

2. Election violence. The stories and pictures online say it all.

Vother apathy in the 2019 elections. In spite of President Buhari's brave statement on ballot-box snatchers, violence and destruction of ballot boxes were rife during the election.
In spite of President Buhari’s brave statement on ballot-box snatchers, violence and destruction of ballot boxes were rife during the election.
One of the reasons why people did not turn up in Isolo where I cast my vote was because of the violence that had taken place in the morning and the one that took place later on in the afternoon. At first, I had presumed it was due to voter apathy. In other places in Lagos like Surulere, the same situation of armed thugs coming to disrupt the process played out. Same goes for states like Rivers and Delta where the thugs came with guns to halt voting in some polling units.

In addition, there are unconfirmed reports that in Lagos, armed thugs with machetes and other weapons stood at gates and main entrances to streets, asking electorates who they were going to cast their votes for before they were allowed to their polling units. No one who was going to vote for PDP or other parties dared step out of their houses.

3. Distance to polling units: For those who had registered in other states and who could not travel to those places for different reasons, and who could not be transferred to a location close to them automatically could not vote on Saturday.
Read full article: https://qwenu.com/2019/02/26/to-vote-or-not-to-vote-voter-apathy-in-the-2019-elections/

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