Anxiety as Nigerians await winner of presidential election

The atmosphere is tensed as Nigerians eagerly await the results of last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly (NASS) elections, which held nationwide.

Although, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has begun announcement of the presidential result, state by state, its not moving fast enough.

As so, Nigerians may have to wait, probably, till Tuesday evening for the announcement of the final result because some states are not ready with their results.

The expectations of the people are however, very high as they can’t wait to know who will steer the affairs of the country for the next four years.

In Lagos, residents are worried that the counting and collating of results is taking too long. People are seen at different areas discussing politics and analysing results got on social media.

A resident of Lagos, Mrs. Miriam Ike has lamented that the process of collation, presentation and announcement of the result by INEC was taking too much time.

“Two days after the election was conducted, yet we are yet to know the final result. It is taking too long and the atmosphere is getting tensed because the people are worried,” she said.

Another resident, Mr. Dele Osho urged INEC to, as a matter of urgency, do something about the long list of parties on the ballot paper, saying announcing result of parties that got zero, two or five votes is time consuming.

He also pointed out that there was high number of invalid votes because the ballot paper was too wide and too long for people to handle properly.

“We know the contest is between a few political parties, so why do we have over 80 party names on the list? I see it as waste of time, resources and energy and I even feel that the long list must have succeeded in confusing some voters who may not be able to go through the long list because some of the party names are similar,” he said.

He therefore, stressed the need for INEC to upgrade its system so as to improve the process of counting, collating and announcement of results after elections so that the people don’t have to continue waiting unnecessarily.

On her part, a first time voter, Halima Musa, who is eager to see her vote count, said if the ballot paper was smaller with fewer party names, the counting and collating process would have been much faster and easier.