The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Councils election could not start well over one hour after the Polling Units (PUs) were to open for accreditation and voting.
Accreditation and voting at the election is scheduled to start at least 8:30 but that was no so at most of the polling units monitored by BusinessDay.
The reason for the delay was later arrival of materials and poll officials at most of the polling units visited.
This ugly incident is not unconnected with the protests of ad-hoc staff engaged for the exercise over alleged non payment of their training allowances and replacement by relatives of staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Collation and Returning Officers.
This delayed the movement of materials and the staff from the Collation Centres/Registration Areas (Ward Centres) to the polling Units.
According to BusinessDay, the City Central Registration Area in the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), located at Government Secondary School Garki, Area 10, distribution of materials was stalled over the grumbling of ad-hoc staff which lasted from 10pm on Friday to 1am this morning.
It was also observed that there was low turnout for the election as poll officials despite arriving late met little or no voters at the polling units visited, including 006 -Area C1, 043 -Police Post, 044 – Angwandadi in Nyanya; 004-Chief Palace, 034 -Pashe Central Primary School Karu.
The low turnout may be due not to just be aparthy on the part of voters but the somewhat non-restriction of movement as people are seeing going about their normal businesses.
There were conflicting reports about the restriction of movement by the FCT Command of the Nigeria Police, one allowing movement and the other restricting movement.
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