
After long hours of voting yesterday across the length and breadth of the country by Nigerians amidst allegations of widespread voting irregularities in a much awaited 2023 General Elections, vote counting, collation and announcements of results are ongoing in Nigeria.
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Yakubu Mahmoud opened the national votes collation centre in Abuja, today without speaking on any of the irregularities alleged.
According to Independent Observer and Monitoring Groups the allegations are “widespread”
Ene Obi of Civil Society Election Situation room said at a press conference that “incidents of voter intimidation, ballot bod destruction and ballot papers destruction by thugs were many”
“We saw INEC officials looking the other way while mass thumb printing were going on and ballot box stuffing in many parts of the north” parts of the country.
She also said incidents of late start of voting was widespread in many states.
Hazmat Lawal of Connected Democracy said in Ekiti said the collation centres were changed without notice. He also said collation of the results were done in “secrecy”
But Chairman Mahmoud went ahead to announce the results without addressing the allegations.
A major party, Labour Party, has criticised INEC performance even accusing it of colluding with another major party All Progressive Congress, APC, to manipulate the results of the elections in APC’s favour.
Chairman of LP Kenbeth Abure has called for the cancellation of the presidential elections nationwide.
He said results from the polling booths do not rhyme with the figures announced nationally by Mahmoud.
The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero on his part described INEC’s handling of the election as shoddy, especially in Lagos and Rivers states, thereby calling on the commission and other stakeholders to ensure the election was free and fair.
He said: “The bloodlettings, harassment, Ballot box snatching and wilful destruction of election materials especially in these two states even in the presence of members of the Security agencies and INEC officials cannot be interpreted any other way except that of collusion. It calls for urgent investigation and action to reassure the people of their safety as the election runs its course.”
According to him, the inability of INEC to prevent the recurrence in the election speaks volume of its ill-preparedness for this election.
Meanwhile collections and announcement of results are ongoing at the states and nationally.
In Lagos results show that APC candidate Bola Tinubu is leading in many local governments areas with LPs Peter Obi following closely second. Obi in the reckoning of many voters should be in a commanding lead
INEC has said digital uploading of results from polling booths to its national server suffered massive setbacks across the country due to “technical hitches” without saying what he meant.
The digital upload was touted by INEC as its strongest safeguards to rigging.
