The Federal Capital Territory Area Council election got off to a troubled start on Saturday morning as voters at a polling unit in Kwali were left stranded after officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission arrived with the wrong Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machine.
The incident occurred at the Bako Primary School polling unit, identified as PU Code 37/05/03/003, located in Pai Ward, Kwali.
As of 9:17 am, accreditation had not commenced at the unit, leaving scores of voters waiting with no indication of when the process would begin.
A video obtained from the polling unit showed frustrated voters gathered within the school premises while electoral officials scrambled to resolve the situation.
Sources at the polling unit confirmed that INEC officials acknowledged bringing an incorrect BVAS device, forcing a halt to proceedings until the right machine could be delivered.
“INEC came with the wrong BVAS. Voters are waiting for the right machine,” the source said.
The BVAS is a critical tool in Nigeria’s electoral process, used to verify voters’ identities through biometric authentication before they are cleared to cast their ballots.
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Any disruption to its deployment directly affects voting timelines and raises concerns about potential voter disenfranchisement.
The Kwali incident was not an isolated case as reports from across the FCT indicated that confusion and disorganisation marked the early hours of the election in several locations.
Journalists on the ground found that many residents were moving from one location to another trying to find their designated polling units, complaining about poor communication and inadequate voter information from INEC.
Some voters said they had been misinformed about their polling unit locations and were forced to travel between centres to confirm where they were registered to vote.
The early hitches cast a shadow over an election that INEC Chairman Prof. Joash Amupitan had promised would be peaceful, transparent, and credible.
The commission had deployed BVAS machines across all 2,822 polling units in the FCT and accredited 89 observer groups and 700 journalists to monitor the process.
Over 1.6 million registered voters were expected to participate in the election, with 570 candidates contesting 68 seats comprising six chairmanship positions and 62 councillorship roles across Abuja Municipal Area Council, Bwari, Gwagwalada, Kuje, Abaji, and Kwali.