Results collated in places where elections didn’t hold – CODE

The Connected Development (CODE) has berated the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over “avoidable lapses” in last Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections.

At a press conference in Abuja on Friday, Chief Executive Officer of CODE, Hamzat Lawal, said the elections were marred by slow upload of results and declaration process in some states.

He also said there were places where elections were not held, yet results were collated and presented.

“We have seen issues of elections not holding in some local government areas and results are being collated. This happened in Oru East, Imo State, where our observers confirmed that no election was held.

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“In fact, some voters were asked to vote in a private residential building of a party chieftain, which is clearly against INEC guidelines and the electoral act. Yet we have results from that LGA. This is an indictment on INEC and all that our constitution stands for,” Lawal said.

He said the information was computed in its situation room from reports of the 5000 accredited and 20,000 citizen-based election observers deployed, for the Saturday’s elections.

The organisation had launched ‘Uzabe’ a tool to help Nigerians track what is happening during the election in real time.

He noted that these insidious acts threatened the credibility of the election, and would make it difficult for many people to accept the results.

He, therefore, urged INEC to address the issues immediately.

He said, “We are also calling on the Nigerian police as the lead agency on election security to monitor. Joint security forces deployed for this election have done well and are already stretched.

He said INEC would stand a chance of redeeming its deflated public confidence by addressing the challenges and preventing recurrence during the March 11 governorship and states assembly elections.