DOHA: Organisers of a Nigerian community election were in for a shock and had to put off the poll exercise when some 1,500 community members turned up to vote instead of 376 registered voters.
The election to pick up some 16 members of the community organisation, Nigerians In Diaspora (NIDO)-Qatar, was slated to be held at a hotel —Crown Plaza—on April 10 with much fanfare.
Ballots were ready and a box where voters would cast their vote was placed at the polling venue, but the entire exercise had to be aborted due to a larger-than-expected voter turnout.
Presidential hopeful O J Millar, seeking another term, confirmed that instead of 376 registered voters, some 1,500 community members, many of them women, descended on the polling venue, creating chaos.
Community sources said that the number of Nigerians in Qatar has multiplied almost fourfold in the past decade — from an estimated 2,000 in 2005 to 8,000 presently. Nigerians then were mostly employed in Qatar’s vibrant oil and gas industry.
But after Qatar won the 2022 FIFA World Cup bid and the launch of a slew of development projects, Nigerians began coming here in growing numbers to work in the booming construction sector.
The Nigerian community organization here was earlier known as Doha Naija and was rechristened in 2010 as NIDO-Qatar.
The last election to pick its executive committee was held in 2005, with Millar emerging president.
The executive panel was dissolved last November to make way for fresh elections and a committee was set up that would supervise the electoral process.
However, the poll committee had little idea that Doha Naija-turned NIDO-Qatar had become extremely popular in the community because of its achievements like successfully lobbying for Nigeria’s embassy to be set up in Doha and Qatar Airways’ starting direct flights to the country.
The poll supervisory panel had, after screening, cleared 17 candidates to fill up 16 positions in the executive committee of NIDO-Qatar.
But the panel had to put off the election and it will now be held either by this month-end of early in May.
In the interim, candidates vying for the 16 executive committee slots are expected to get many of those who turned up at Crown Plaza on April 10 in the hope of casting their vote, to register as voters.
Community sources said that in fact these candidates canvassed for their win so vociferously that so many Nigerians turned up at the polling venue on April 10.
It is said that some of them even brought their supporters along. The electoral process of the Nigerian community organization was made to coincide with the win of Nigeria’s new president, Muhammadu Buhari, who has been here once on a private visit a few years ago, and can be expected again, this year or early the next.
The Peninsula
