By Emeka Nze and Ameh Ejekwuonyilo
Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday debunked claims of being under pressure to declare the 2015 presidential and National Assembly election results, calling on Nigerians to expect the results of Saturday’s polls today.
The chairman of the commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, who made this remark during a post-election press briefing in Abuja, said results would be declared in less than 48 hours counting from last Saturday’s exercise.
Jega stated: “Only two states have completed the collation of results while collation was still ongoing in most states… Nigerians should discountenance results announced by partisan persons and the social media as it is the commission that has the mandate to announce election results”.
Jega attributed the late arrival of materials at some polling centres to the demand of 100 per cent payment by some drivers under the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), who he said the commission signed an MOU with to convey electoral officers and materials to the centres.
He said the transportation of men and materials was a remarkable improvement compared to the 2011 general elections.
He, however, admitted that the commission had learnt from its mistake and hoped to improve on the challenges in subsequent elections.
On the alleged failure of the card reader machines, he noted that only 374, representing 0.25 per cent of the equipment which failed in the exercise nationwide out of the 150,000 card readers deployed for the election, was so minute to adjudge the entire equipment a total failure.
He disclosed that Borno, Osun, Ekiti, Kebbi Adamawa and Jigawa were among the states that reverted to manual accreditation in some polling units, saying that investigations were on as to what accounted for the difficulties encountered with the devices.
Other states the INEC boss confirmed the use of manual accreditation included Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi and Anambra states.
He said elections were being concluded yesterday in 90 polling units in Lagos, 16 in Kebbi, 25 in Adamawa, 6 in Niger state, 37 in Yobe and 8 polling units in Borno.
Other states where the chairman confirmed held their elections on Sunday were 37 polling units in Jigawa, 13 in Kano, 116 in Taraba and 2 polling units in the FCT.
While admitting that crowd control posed serious challenges at the polling centres, the INEC boss stated that it would be improved upon in subsequent elections, while noting that the commission would investigate alleged substitution of ad-hoc staff with non-trained staff in some states.
The INEC chairman also confirmed that the commission had received a letter from the opposition All Progressives Congress calling for the cancellation of the exercise in Rivers state and the razing of INEC office in the state but was yet to take decision on the matter pending the outcome of investigation into the incident.
He commended Nigerians for their resilience and massive turnout for the elections.
