TRACKING>>It was confusion at the Dutse Alhaji Primary School as thousands of Voters who had turned up to exercise their franchise could not identify their polling units.
Leadership observed that voters had turned up at the Polling Center as early as 5am while voting materials had arrived as early at 7am, however voters could not identify their polling units as the centre had 13 units with no identification marks.
Speaking with LEADERSHIP, one of the Ad-Hoc staff who plead anonymity said the Dutse Alhaji Primary school which comprised 001 is made up of 13 polling units with alphabets of voters ranging from A-Z.
She assured that registered voters who were patient to search out their units will find their voting points. “Voters should go round and search for their names, anywhere they find their names, and they will stand there and vote”.
However due to INECs failure to mark spots, voters ran helter skelter in search of their voting points while several sought directions from any one that looked like an INEC Ad-Hoc staff.
A voter, Ms Adewumi lamented that the arrangement was shoddy as she had spent over 2 hours searching for her polling unit.
In her words” I spent N1000 to get here since 6am and yet its past 8am since the rush began and I still can’t identify my voting point. I know it is in this centre but the arrangement is poor and I cannot identify my unit.
“It is a very simple thing, all they needed to do was to write out the alphabets attached to their units and post them at various units to save us this running around”
She ended her diatribe saying”If they like they should hold us here till tommorrow, I must caste my vote”
Her feelings were reiterated by Mallam Musa who said we are already here and anytime they like, let them start, we must vote
“We are ready to be here till anytime they start”
Another voter lamented that he had seen the point where his alphabet N appeared, but less than 20 names appeared and he could not trace his own name, even though he was sure, that was where his unit was supposed to be”
One of the observers who spoke with Leadership, said the development of splitting the center into 13 units is a good one as he was sure with time everybody will find his or her spot.
He stated it would have been more confusion if all the voters had had to use one polling unit, so this is a good development.
He however lamented the late start, expressing the hope that when accreditation and voting begins, the Ad-Hoc staff would be able to meet up with their time
As at 9.01 am when this report was filed accreditation and voting had yet to commence
