The accreditations process in the two polling boots at Agboroko, Iba Ojo Local Government of Area of Lagos was marred by confusion as willing voters stood endlessly under the scorching heat of the sun for accreditations.
At nearby Igbo-Elerin polling units, one of the card reader machines in unit 019 broke down leaving voters stranded even as others in the same centre were accredited.
In all the polling units, INEC officials were said to have arrived late at about 11am local time and accreditations process commenced late.
The exercise turned out to be sluggish as valid registered voters had to sort out which of the two polling zones in the centres they were to be accredited.
First, voters had to search through the INEC’s valid registration lists of voters pasted on the walls to determine the appropriate unit.
At polling unit 015, Agboroko, Police Inspector, Austine Oriaku and one other police constable were seen helping to maintain orderliness, one at each of the two polling zones at the centre marked EC 30B.
The officer explained that the polling centre was divided into A and B to ease the process.
According to him, those whose surnames fall within the alphabets A to M were being accredited in the A zone while others whose surnames fall under the alphabets N to Z are accredited in the B polling zone.
Nevertheless, as at 1 pm local time, most voters were seen being accredited by the three INEC officials working in each of the polling zones.
At another polling unit 014, also in Agboroko, the situation was out of control as a long queue of voters were seen sweating under the sun insisting that they must not be disenfranchised.
Arrangements similar to those in units 015 were also made to ease accreditations but the crowd of voters seemed to overwhelm the capacity of few INEC officials.
At the Igbo-Elerin polling units 019, the voters were seen milling around in protest against card reader failure.
One of the machines failed to work, and another machine was said to have been brought in as a replacement but also failed.
When voters threatened to disrupt the process if the card reader failure was not addressed, the Baale of Igbo-Elerin, Aina Taofeek, called in the Police.
The heavily armed police officers promptly drove in on two patrol vans. However, the law enforcement agents persuaded INEC officials to find a solution to the problem.
No arrest was made as officers and men of the police saw reasons with voters’ in their agitation.
As at 2pm, accreditations were still on at units 014 Agboroko, units 019 Igbo-Elerin, and some other places in the area.