Nigeria’s social media platforms were abuzz over an alleged voter suppression that took place at Ojo Local Government, Lagos State.
A large number of people were reported to have trooped out en masse in an attempt to register for their PVCs in preparation for the 2023 general election.
The market association, on Wednesday, June 10th, 2022, directed all the traders in the market who are without PVC to go register for their PVCs in a bid to participate in the forthcoming general election and made it clear to the traders that they won’t be able to open their shops unless they have their PVCs.
The following day, Thursday, June 11th, 2022, a large number of people thronged INEC office at Ojo Local Government, Lagos State to register for their PVCs.
One of the traders in the market, Titus Ogochukwu, who spoke with the media said they are unbothered by the fact that they had to shut their shops.
He said, “The leaders of the market told us that we must get our PVC. The issue was debated and we all agreed to set aside a day for the exercise. During the meeting, we agreed that it will be better on a Thursday, being the day for the weekly environmental sanitation exercise in the market.”
“We complied, but we regret the inconvenience it caused our customers. Some of them came from within and outside the state. Most of the hotels in Ojo are fully booked by customers who came from outside the state. They are waiting for us to open the market for business on Friday.”
However, there was a series of angry and bitter social media posts from Nigerians over an alleged systematic voter’s suppression of Igbos as some thugs were reported to have disrupted the registration process at Ojo Local Government.
One @noxyplanet tweeted, “The Igbo want to leave you and your beautiful promise Land— Nigeria, you say no.
Another tweet from @NKsamaras says, “Ndi PVC, they have started restricting Igbos from getting #PVC in Lagos State Alaba
Reacting to the news, Benjamin Hundeyin, Lagos police spokesperson, through his official Twitter account in a series of tweets said the disturbance had nothing to do with ethnicity, citing “large number of people” at the place as the reason for the mayhem.
“Consequently, the Ojo Local Government venue of the registration was besieged by a mammoth crowd. The situation was made worse by the fact that only one registration terminal was working. One of the people who came for registration made trouble and was challenged by those around.”
“Going by simple probability, the attacker or the attacked is very likely to be Igbo. They were simply large in number. However, giving this incident ethnic coloration would not help matters. The entire episode lasted a few minutes.”
“Sadly, recordings from those few minutes are still traveling far and wide. Normalcy has since returned and the Divisional Police Officer there is fully in charge of the security situation.” he tweeted.
