Crisis Breaks Out At VGC Over Time To End Elections

 

There has been a disruption in the ongoing elections in the Victoria Garden City (VGC) area of Lagos State over time to end the elections.

Crisis has erupted at polling unit 032 in VGC where some polling agents have insisted on elections ending by 2.30pm.

This caused a crisis between the polling agents of particularly the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Labour Party (LP).

Trouble began at 2.20pm when one of the residents of VGC, On-air personality, Ik Osakioduwa, took the microphone to announce that everyone on the queue should sit under the canopy labeled polling unit 033 as those not on the queue by 2.30pm would not be allowed to join and vote.

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He had barely made this announcement when one of the agents in the crowd shouted at him to sit down insisting that the announcement was not necessary.

It further led to a shouting match when some party agents wearing the APC tags insisted that voting must end by 2.30pm.

The residents resisted the move describing the APC agents as infiltrators who were not even residents of the estate.

There was a bit of pushing and shoving and plenty of shouting until the policemen on duty took charge and secured the polling unit by keeping everyone at bay.

For now, normalcy has returned, with INEC officials keeping mum on the crises.

Voting is, however, still ongoing as the residents insist that the INEC guidelines stipulate that everyone on the queue as at 2.30pm must be allowed to vote.

At the time of filing this report, Channels TV’s correspondent, Shola Soyele, estimates that there are still about two hundred people yet to cast their vote at the affected polling unit.

The governorship and state assembly elections were rescheduled for Sunday after elections failed to hold in 10 polling units in the area with other parts of the state on Saturday.

Announcing the postponement of the election in the area on Saturday, INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, Segun Agbaje, said corps members deployed as ad-hoc staff were hesitant to enter the VGC Estate as they alleged that they were held hostage in the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections.

Agbaje said the Commission’s ad-hoc staff set up voting materials in front of the estate on Saturday but the estate residents claimed that hoodlums might disrupt the process, so they did not feel secure and could not cast their votes.

He said the situation was difficult for security agents to contain hence he and his team had to come to the area.