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The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC has said the Commission does not take the patience of citizens for granted and will continue to take steps to protect the integrity of the vote and consolidate the progress made so far in the electoral process.
INEC National Commissioner in charge of voter education and publicity, Fetus Okoye said this at a press conference in Abuja on Sunday night.
Okoye said, in keeping with promise made to Nigerians, INEC Chairman had meetings with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) and service providers, and the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) to review processes and procedures to ensure more optimal delivery of personnel and materials to various locations for the election to facilitate the opening the Polling Units on time.
He said, majority of the polling units nationwide opened on schedule and citizens were attended to promptly. Similarly, there was improved voter authentication using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) while the uploading of Polling Unit results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) witnessed a remarkable iimprovement.
Giving appraisal, he said "We have left no stone unturned as far as the processes and procedures under the control of the Commission were concerned. However, for difficult and unforeseen circumstances outside the Commission’s control, we did our best to respond, especially where processes were disrupted by actors over whom we have little or no control".
Okoye laments how such diabolical behaviour did not only affect citizens but also impacted on the Commission’s officials and processes. INEC staff, both regular and ad hoc were victims of violence. Some of our staff were abducted, harassed, intimidated, hospitalized and in one case killed.
Nevertheless, where we could not deploy to enable citizens to vote, the Commission took the decision to remobilize to such places to enable citizens to exercise their franchise. Unfortunately, we could not the same to areas where voting was disrupted, and election materials destroyed. We are keeping our eyes on those areas and would not hesitate to remobilize where the outcome of the election is affected.
He said, at the moment, collation of results and declaration of winners for the 28 Governorship and 993 State Assembly elections are ongoing nationwide. We are committed to the sanctity of the process and will not hesitate to take drastic measures against proven irregularities. Allegations of voter inducement, harassment and manipulation of results will be reviewed and addressed.