Chaos, mud and cards: Nigerians frustrated before the election

by Celia LEBUR

Angry voters queuing for hours and entire regions of the country have made the war zones: traps are not lacking NigeriaThe next general election.

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With a little more than a week until the opening of the polls on February 16, logistical snafus frustrated potential voters.

On Friday, across the country, Nigerians tried to retrieve the biometric ID cards needed to vote on the last day of the collection.

But many have not been able to collect their permanent voting cards (PVC), a sign of future challenges for the 84 million people registered in the presidential and legislative polls who will decide the balance of power in the most populous country. Africa.

"They sabotage our efforts to vote and elect the candidate of our choice. It's unfair, "said 27-year-old Tobiloba, who had been waiting since 5:30 in the morning for an off-season shower to pick up his PVC at a distribution center in Lagos.

At the end of the day, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had extended its distribution this weekend until Monday.

"We will continue to take all necessary measures to ensure that no registered voter is deprived of the right to vote," said INEC President Mahmood Yakubu.

President Muhammadu Buhari is fighting with his main rival, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, for a second four-year term.

– To chaos –

The PVCs played a major role in the historic election of 2015, during which Buhari beat incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan in the first election victory at the polls of a Nigerian opposition candidate.

The cards serve as proof of the elector's identity and are intended to reduce the fraud that has tainted previous votes.

Yet putting them in the hands of voters proved difficult.

In the center of the sprawling suburb of Lekki, Lagos, where Tobiloba and thousands of other people were waiting Friday, INEC workers announced names on a rundown sound system.

"We bring more PVC, stay here and stay calm," one staff member told an increasingly impatient crowd.

The soldiers were deployed in the muddy yard. Earlier in the day, they had to quell an angry mob that was trying to storm its doors before the start of the distribution, an INEC official told AFP.

Friday was Francis Ojah's fourth attempt to recover his PVC – but again, he was frustrated.

"They did not find him. They told me that I should come after the elections. Can you imagine? He said.

Meanwhile, another woman left with two cards saying that one was for her and the other for her husband.

– Complaints abound –

Nigerians have complained on social media about their inability to recover their cards despite repeated attempts.

"We have been overwhelmed by calls from Nigerians to review the current process of collecting" PVCs, "acknowledged Yakubu on Friday in justifying the extension of the distribution.

But the failed organization is not the only challenge that elections can face. There is poor infrastructure and unreliable electricity.

The cracked roads make it difficult to access most of the 120,000 polling stations in a country twice as big as France.

Organized crime, banditry, kidnappings and insurgencies are also major problems.

Nowhere in the world has it been so severely affected as the north-east of the country, where a decade of violence provoked by the Islamist insurgency Boko Haram has left 27,000 dead and about 1.8 million displaced.

Observers, including the United States in a January statement, have expressed concern that Boko Haram can not target polling stations.

The Borno region in the north-east of the country has been ravaged by violence. INEC announced the opening of polling stations serving 400,000 people in eight of dozens of IDP camps in Boko Haram.

Under cover of anonymity, a humanitarian worker based in Maiduguri, the state capital, said it would mean that "hundreds of thousands of people will not be able to vote," especially those living in the regions. Boko Haram reigning near Lake Chad.

Another subject of concern is NigeriaThe Middle Belt region, where clashes between pastoralists and farming communities have left thousands dead and tens of thousands displaced since the beginning of 2018.

In the Benue and Plateau states, which were badly hit, many families lost everything when their homes were set on fire during the clashes, including the documents they would need to recover their PVC and vote.

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