Hundreds of voters scampered for safety on Saturday as security operatives fired gunshots at a polling unit in Abaji Local Government Area of Abuja.
PREMIUM TIMES was present at PU 03, Ward 02 (Abaji North East) in the area council when police officers fired into the air six times to disperse voters, who they said were getting uncomfortably too close to the ballot boxes.
The event happened at exactly 1:47 p.m. when some voters were waiting to cast their votes.
Not clear to what warranted the gunshots, this reporter approached a female officer who admitted there were gunshots.
“If you were close enough, you would have understood why the bullets were fired,” she told this reporter before walking away.
A member of Special Forces, a branch of Nigerian police, who preferred not to be named by the platform, explained why his colleagues fired the gunshots amidst armless civilians.
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“No. There was no attempt to snatch the ballot box. They (voters) have choked the voting point and they almost pushed each other.
“They are disturbing them (INEC officials) from doing their job and we warned them to move back but they were not listening.
“So, the MOPOL guy had to shoot three times and some of them did not even move until we formed a wall to push them back,” the skinny officer, dressed in black, explained to PREMIUM TIMES.
Despite the gunshot that sent many people scampering for safety, this newspaper can report that the voters at the PU still stayed to cast their votes.
PREMIUM TIMES can also confirm that the BVAS malfunctioning also played a significant role in the slow pace at which voting processes were done at the PU 003, which is one of the most populous in Abaji North-east.
With 2,181 registered voters, the Anyura/Gidan Ayura PU is the second-largest PU across the 9 Wards under Abaji North and South East.
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