Voter turnout was low during Saturday’s local government chairmanship and councillorship elections across the Lagos Island East Local Council Development Area (LCDA), despite the early arrival of electoral officials and the timely start of voting.
At Polling Unit 013 on Moloney Street, voting began at exactly 8:10 a.m. after the accreditation of voters. Although the unit has 122 registered voters, about 11 people were seen in the queue at the start of voting.
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Similar scenes of voter apathy played out across other polling units in the area. At Polling Unit 006, only 5 were accredited out of 62 registered voters.
Also, Polling Unit 007 recorded six out of 48 registered voters. Polling Unit 011, despite having 1,403 registered voters, saw a low turnout. Polling Units 016 and 018, with 309 and 116 registered voters respectively, also recorded sparse attendance.
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Across all the polling units visited, officials of the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) were on the ground and attending to voters without delay.
Each polling unit has at least one police officer stationed to maintain order in what remained largely quiet and uneventful exercises.
PREMIUM TIMES reported that LASIEC stated that the Saturday elections are for 57 chairmanship and vice-chairmanship positions, as well as 376 councillorship seats across the state.
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Voting is expected to take place in 13,325 polling units statewide. Lagos currently has 7,060,195 registered voters, of which 6,214,970 have collected their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs). However, 845,225 PVCs remain uncollected, a factor that may significantly affect voter turnout.
Some residents who spoke with our reporter said the poor turnout to a general lack of interest in the local electoral process and doubts about whether their votes would count.
Others blamed inadequate awareness and mobilisation ahead of the election.
As of midday, voting continued peacefully across Lagos Island East LCDA amid general low turnout.
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