Lagos: Apapa and Idi-Araba: Hausa communities boycott elections

Posted by admin Elections 2011, Lagos, NNP Elections 2011 Updates, State News Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

Most residents of Hausa communities in Apapa, Lagos, on Tuesday refused to show up at the various polling stations for the governorship and states’ Assembly elections.

Also, in Idi-Araba, a Lagos suburb with preponderant Hausa population, there was general voter apathy and lack of enthusiasm among the residents, though the area had the highest number of polling booths: as many as four in one compound.

Our correspondents observed that the action was a sharp departure from the presidential election when the Northerners came out en masse to exercise their civic right.

However, while officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission at the various polling units in Apapa said it might not be unconnected with the outcome of the presidential poll, which favoured incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party, while Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change came second; Idi-Araba residents alleged that their apathy had to do with what they described as ex-Governor Bola Tinubu’s “betrayal” during the presidential elections on April 16.

According to a respondent who gave his name as Isiaka without providing a surname, “Tinubu betrayed us during the presidential election; so, we are not going to take part in this one.

“Imagine, he has sold Lagos to the PDP; he has also sold Ogun and other states to PDP.”

Security operatives, INEC officials and party agents in some of the polling units in Apapa told our correspondents that most of the Hausas only came out to vote for Buhari during the presidential elections.

“Since Buhari did not win, however, most of them became discouraged and lost interest in the whole electoral process,” the officials said.

A voter in Liverpool Road, Apapa, Mr. Sola Balogun, informed that some of the voters had torn their voter registration cards after the presidential poll, out of anger that “their man did not win.”

Consequently, he said, they would not be able to vote at the governorship election, even if they wanted to.

Some INEC officials as well as other voters confirmed the story.

However, a CPC party agent in one of the polling units on Marine Road, Apapa, told our correspondents that most of the Northerners had travelled back to their various states after the presidential poll, hence the low turnout.

The agent explained that some of them who were still around did not show interest in the governorship and Assembly polls because candidates vying under the CPC platform were largely unknown to them.

But police officers at some polling stations in Burma Road, Apapa, said most of the Hausas did not show up for the voting exercise probably as a result of fear of reprisal attacks due to the violent killing of corps members and Southerners living in the North, after the presidential polls result were declared.

Meanwhile, our correspondents observed that the general enthusiasm seen among voters during the previous elections, especially the presidential poll, was absent during the governorship poll.

It was observed that people strolled out to the polling units in pockets to make their accreditation.

INEC officials said some of the accredited voters failed to show up for the voting exercise.

-Punchwp_posts