INEC DISENFRANCHISED UNILAG STUDENTS

When the elections were postponed, many concluded that it was an orchestrated strategy of the federal government to rig elections as the campaign was stiff and tight on both camps. Especially after the INEC chairman repeatedly said his commission was well-prepared and ready to conduct “free and fair elections”. The questions
that ran through my mind this past week are as follows:
Was the INEC indeed ready? Is the INEC ready? Will the INEC ever be ready? If yes, when? To answer these questions, you should know that the INEC, a week before the proceedings (21st and 22nd March), have trained over 1,500 Unilag students who volunteered as ad hoc staff. These students were automatically disenfranchised. They won’t be able to
vote, left desolate and stranded on campus without participating in the exercise. The students were promised transportation to their different racos during orientation and training, training allowance, an enumeration for the assignment. I received an SMS to report at the DLI car park of Unilag for 12 noon to be transported. We were there as agreed till 4.34pm, when, finally, an INEC official came to address us after wasting our precious four hours. One of the students, who, at this time, was already aggrieved, demanded an answer as to why the INEC was dodging during orientation and training: “Hello, ma, how much is the total enumeration for this assignment?” — “That question I cannot answer,” replied ‘miss INEC’. It was on this background that the students protested as
they saw four yellow danfo buses (12-passenger buses) which the INEC, with all her readiness and wisdom, hired to transport the “first-class brains of the country”. As the protest went on, the DSA of the Unilag community came to address the angry students. After a brief speech of disassociating the school authority from the
assignment, he said that the students who wanted to go for the assignment should do that at their own risk, that the assignment was voluntary and had nothing to do with
the school authority.
Furthermore, some of the students that were sent to Mushin came back after learning about this incident and also after seeing the reality of the INEC’s “readiness”.
Two female students ran from their polling units in Mushin after discovering no accommodation was provided. “I was to sleep in an unsafe school with a promise
that the Agberos would protect me.” This was the experience of some 400-level students of Unilag reiterating their experience at Mushin LGA of Lagos.
As I listened to the complaints on TV this morning about “lack of the INEC staff” in so many polling units in Lagos state, I decided to air my views and experience with the commission. I think if the elections in Lagos state was cancelled it would not be a bad idea, as today’s election cannot be said to be “free, fair and credible” with the huge shortage of staff in Lagos state.