adminreporter
Voting in parts of Kubwa, Bwari Area Council, was hampered on Saturday by poor voter turnout and technical hitches involving the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System during the Federal Capital Territory Area Council elections.
At Polling Unit 044, LEA Primary School, Kubwa II, only about 50 voters had been accredited and cast their ballots out of more than 700 registered voters as of late morning.
The Presiding Officer, Abdulmalik Hussaini, described the turnout as extremely low, noting that although voting began at 8:30 am, participation remained minimal.
He stated that officials were present and prepared on time but had accredited just 50 voters on the BVAS device, adding that voting would close at 2:30 pm in line with guidelines.
A similar situation was recorded at Polling Unit 048, where the Presiding Officer, Ahmed Tijjani Baba, said only 50 out of over 750 registered voters had been accredited.
At Polling Unit 046, which has 770 registered voters, accreditation was slowed by technical issues with the BVAS.
The Presiding Officer, Abdullahi Yusuf, explained that while the device sometimes captured voters’ fingerprints or facial images, it failed to complete the accreditation process.
Observers witnessed a case where the BVAS took nearly two minutes to accredit a voter after previously failing to verify four others who attempted fingerprint and facial authentication.
Yusuf said efforts to contact the Registration Area Centre technician to resolve the malfunction were unsuccessful, as calls to the official went unanswered.
In addition to the technical setbacks, electoral officials complained of inadequate logistics.
According to Yusuf, they were not provided with chairs or canopies and had to source furniture from nearby classrooms, leaving them exposed and vulnerable to interference from security personnel.
