INEC MOCK ELECTION BADLY AFFECTED

The Area Council Mock Election scheduled for today, Saturday 7th of February, has been concluded, and the outcome was bad.

INEC staff arrived for the exercise, advertised to commence at 8 a.m., in good time at the polling unit we monitored and for hours, no voter turned up for the exercise. It appeared not to have been a surprise, but rather a letdown for the Berger Camp presiding officer.

A remote monitoring of another polling unit at the Kubwa Market indicated a disappointing turn of events at the end of the exercise.

Meanwhile, report has it that the INEC chairman Prof. Joash Amupitan, visited some polling units to monitor the exercise and among the units he visited were PU 003 Sagwari Primary School, Dutse Alhaji, PU001 Ushafa I &II/Ushafa Primary School, Ushafa Ward in Bwari Area Council.

She was seen trying to upload images while consulting with her technical colleague on areas that initially posed a challenge to her.

On the monitoring trail, the INEC chairman addressed the press, stating,  “We don’t want to use the main election to test. We’d like to use this mock accreditation and mock election to test the functionality of the BVAS itself as well as the improvement that has been done. He expressed satisfaction saying “So far, I am very satisfied that the BVAS has worked excellently well. It took just five seconds or less to accredit a voter.

“You can see even at this polling unit, about 11 voters have been accredited and they have voted.

“We also tried to just get somebody who had voted to come back and see whether the BVAS would allow him, but we all saw it: that the BVAS popped up immediately that this person had been accredited.

“So with this technology, there is no way you can be accredited twice. There is no way you can vote twice”.

Campaign posters in Kubwa

The INEC chairman acknowledged that voter apathy is an ongoing challenge but hopes that the mock exercise will serve to spur voters to come out to vote on the election day, noting that INEC has the responsibility to educate voters, but it is the political parties that should mobilise people to come out and vote by campaigning to them.

Back here in Kubwa, the Berger Camp polling unit, which has 749 registered voters, recorded a dismal turnout of only 5 voters for the exercise; no voter was present at the Market polling unit, which has over 2000 voters in their record.

The lady presiding officer, who declined to state her name, expressed satisfaction with the performance of the BVAS as she was seen trying to upload images while consulting with her technical colleague on areas that initially posed a challenge to her. Stating her opinion on the turnout at the end of the exercise, she said “The turnout was poor; in a polling unit of over 700“, she added with a shrug, “only 5 people came out”.

Curiously, while rounding up, at least 5 other persons approached the INEC officer to inquire what was going on as the has sight of the BVAS she was working with, and each time she graciously informed and explained to them that she was there for a mock election exercise in preparation for the Area Council elections coming up on 21st of February 2026. This revealed the level of awareness, or the lack of it as it concerns the upcoming elections.

We continue to call for mass participation by all residents of Kubwa in this important grassroots governance mandate.