Reuters) – Voting started hours late in some wards in Nigeria’s oil capital Port Harcourt on Saturday but elsewhere in southern Rivers State polling stations failed to open and gunmen stole ballot papers.
At a community centre in Mile 3 area of the city where voting started three and a half hours behind schedule, there was no booth for people to vote in secret for a state governor and members of the state house of assembly.
Instead, voters put their thumbprints on ballot papers in full view of a noisy crowd of electoral officials, members of political parties and fellow voters standing around the table.
A young man who said he was representing the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) stood over the voters, pointing at the PDP symbol on the gubernatorial ballot papers. Almost all voters put their thumbprint where he indicated. There were at least five other young men from the PDP standing around.
“These boys are not supposed to be there. They are not supposed to be telling the people who to vote for. They are interfering,” said Collins Owhonda, a student waiting to cast his vote.
Helen Ejimogu, a representative from the opposition Democratic People’s Party, said she felt helpless to intervene.
“There’s nothing I can do because I don’t want violence. I want to leave here peacefully,” she said.
There were also problems with the voters’ register. Officials at first tried to reconcile the names on their register with those on the voters’ cards, but they could hardly find any of them so they quickly gave up.
“I wanted to see my name on the register before I voted but they told me to just vote. I am not happy because I am worried they can invalidate my vote,” said Nnamdi Weleonu, a trader.
STOLEN BALLOT PAPERS
Residents of other parts of Port Harcourt said voting had yet to start in their wards by midday, while local radio stations reported there was no voting in many rural and riverine communities. Rivers is in the Niger Delta, a vast wetlands where hundreds of villages are accessible only by boat.
In Ikwerre local government area, gunmen attacked a minibus carrying ballot papers and boxes to a rural ward and stole all the voting materials.
“We are not sure if we can hold an election in that ward now,” said Robinson Umunna, the local operations officer of the electoral body.
Rivers, Nigeria’s biggest oil-producing state, is plagued by violence rooted in neglect of poor communities, political rivalries, turf wars between gangs and illegal trade in stolen crude. Incidents multiplied in the run-up to the polls.
In Port Harcourt, two police stations were attacked overnight by gunmen throwing dynamite and a total of seven policemen were killed.
At Mini-Okoro police station, hundreds of people gathered to look at the smoldering ruin of the building.
“The police can’t even protect themselves. How can they protect us? I have told my children to stay at home and I am not going to vote. It’s too dangerous,” said a resident who gave her name as Grace, staring at the burnt carcasses of police cars.