The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) Election Analysis Centre (EAC) CDD-EAC, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to extend the voting period in order to enable all who want to do so to cast their ballot.
This is contained in the CDD preliminary statement on the conduct of February 2023 Presidential And National Assembly Elections, signed by the Chair, CDD-EAC, Prof. Adele Jinadu.
According to him, CDD-EAC deployed 4,993 observers across the 36 states and FCT, to keep a close watch on the conduct of the elections.
He said the EAC works in teams with clearly assigned roles and responsibilities, and that the observers in each of the 36 states and the FCT fed data to the EAC, using ICT tools.
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On arrival of INEC officials, the report said that the CDD-EAC observer data indicated late arrival of poll officials to their respective polling units across the country on Election Day.
“Across the country almost 50% of INEC poll officials arrived on time for the commencement of the process. However, the South East and South South recorded the lowest percentage of poll officials arriving on time.
“In the South East, only 10% of poll officials arrived their respective polling units on time and in the South South it was 27%. In the North East 42% of poll officials got to their polling units (PUs) on time whilst in the North West, North Central and South West the figure was over 50%.
“However, Lagos, the State with the highest number of registered voters recorded just 18% in terms of timely arrival of INEC officials. The average opening time across the country was 9:25am; that is a clear one hour after polling was scheduled to start,” the report said.
It said an average, CDD-EAC observation showed INEC officials arrived for set up and commencement of the process between 9:30am and 10:30am in the PUs observed.
It said in the South East, the average time for opening of polls was 10:56am; but that the CDD-EAC observers also reported several instances of polls not opening, even at 12:30pm.
“In several cases, observer findings reported security officials arriving at the polling stations, while INEC officials had not arrived to open the polls.
“Where voting has started late or where process have still not started, we encourage INEC to extend the voting period in order to enable all who want to do so to cast their ballot,” the report said.
On the availability and functionality of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), the CDD-EAC said that observer data showed the availability of one BVAS device in 98.8% of PUs.
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