Pushing, shoving, shouting and swearing Nigerians scrambled to register to vote in April’s general elections on the final day of voter registration.
There were allegations of electoral officers demanding bribes before registering desperate eligible voters in a registration centre in Abuja’s Area Three.
“They asked me to give them 120 naira (almost $1) before I’d be registered but I refused,” says journalist Ann Onyealisi.
The electoral officers deny the charge even though many other people at the registration point corroborated Ms Onyealisi’s claims.
“They said they needed the money to buy petrol to run small electric power generators that powered the laptop they were using for the exercise.”
In many registration centres across the capital city, Abuja, electoral officers struggled with excited crowds determined to have their picture and biodata recorded on a lap top and a web cam.
“I’ve been here for over eight hours,” says Joseph Itan, 27, looking into the tiny web camera that was capturing his image onto a cheap laptop in Abuja’s Maitama District.
“But I stayed because it’s very important for me to register so that I can vote and to avoid being denied some privileges that are now tied to the voter card.”
Public holiday
The compilation of a new voters’ roll began two months ago as Africa’s most populous country prepares for landmark elections that should mark the first handover of power from one civilian regime to another since independence from Britain in 1960.
The exercise has, however, been dogged by lack of public awareness and inadequate or faulty electronic registration equipment.
On Monday, the Nigerian government declared a public holiday to enable civil servants to register.
Some states made the voter registration mandatory for civil servants, warning that they would not receive their monthly wages if they failed to obtain voter cards.
These factors and “increased political awareness” are being cited as the reason for the higher turn-out witnessed in the final days of the exercise.
“Definitely, there’s a higher political awareness among Nigerians now,” says Abdulsalam Ismail as he waits to register at a centre in Maitama’s OAU Quarters, Abuja.
“We’ve all woken from our slumber. We had to wake up because we weren’t getting what we wanted and we have now realised that this vote could make the difference.”
Determined
In another registration centre in Abuja’s Wuse II district, two first-time voters said they were looking forward to casting their first vote.
“It’s going to be my first vote because during the last elections in 2003, I wasn’t yet 18,” said Tunde Akanbi.
“I am going to vote. Whether it counts or not after that is another matter. But I want to satisfy myself that I have voted.”
But another first-time voter, Mercy Simon, is not as determined.
“I was there yesterday to register and they gave me a number and asked me to wait for my number to be called so I could register,” says Ms Simon.
“The electoral officials did not come until 1000 and by 1700, they were already packing up their equipment without registering many of us. I couldn’t go back this afternoon because I’m working.”
But this has not discouraged 27-year old Ben Shima who says he is determined to have a say in the forthcoming elections.
“I want to choose my leader and I believe that my vote will count,” he says. “I don’t even know whom I’d vote for, but I know I have to vote.”
Many of the people queuing up to obtain the voter card are calling for an extension of the exercise, but Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) says an extension of the deadline is unlikely.
“Even if we extend this registration for another three months, the same thing will happen,” says Ibrahim Biu who is in charge of voter education at Inec.
Some 40,000 laptops and direct data-capturing machines were deployed for the exercise, Inec says.
The electoral body says so far, it has been able to register about 50 million of the estimated 70 million eligible voters in the country.