INEC Releases Preliminary Report On April 11 Elections

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The electoral body in Nigeria has released a preliminary election report, saying the general assessment of the governorship election across the nation showed that “the process went very well”.

In the report released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday, 88.9 per cent of polling units opened for accreditation between 8:00am and 10:00am across the nation.

According to INEC, only 5.2 per cent of polling units were yet to open as at 1:00pm and that 73 per cent of the polling units had commenced voting by 2:30pm.

INEC also said that the process of accreditation with Smart Card Readers were successful in a majority of the polling units.

The electoral body added that initial challenges were recorded in Edo and Abia states but that its technical teams deployed to support the states were able to resolve the issues in a timely manner.

INEC further noted that many parts of the country remained relatively peaceful during the elections, but added that some states, however, recorded a significant number of violent incidents.

Affected states are Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ebonyi and Ondo.

Calls For Election Cancelation

INEC’s records showed there were 66 reports of violent incidents targeted at polling units, the Commission’s officials, voters and election materials.

The Commission said it was investigating the incidents and would do everything within its powers to bring culprits to justice.

In an interview on Saturday, the spokesman for the chairman of the INEC, Mr Kayode Idowu said that it may cancel elections in areas were violent incidents were recorded.

Reports of violence in Abia, Akwa Ibom and Rivers State, have led to calls for cancelation of election results in some of the places where violence was recorded. But Mr Idowu said that the Returning Officer reserved the right to decide if the elections in the areas would be canceled.

But Mr Idowu said “there are guidelines and rules that the commission applies for dealing with cases where you have unwarranted infringement on the process, like ballot box snatches and stuffs like that.

He said: “The Returning Officer is empowered to take a decision on what to do with areas where there have been violation of the process, like snatching of the ballot box or card readers.

“If the Returning Officer considers it serious enough, he can cancel or void the elections in such areas. The decision resides with the Returning Officer.