Making the announcement in a media briefing yesterday, the INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega the first collated results for Presidential election were being expected at the National Collation Centre, Abuja, by yesterday evening.
He therefore warned “strongly against premature publication or announcement of results by unauthorized persons and media channels, particularly online sites”.
“Only INEC is empowered by law to announce results and it is an offence for anyone to preempt the Commission in this regard”, he stressed.
The INEC boss also regretted what he described as operational challenges that resulted in inconclusive elections in 350 polling units in 10 states, and noted that lessons therefrom would be applied for better conduct of the remaining polls.
He enumerated the affected polling units as per their states to include: Lagos – 90, Kebbi – 16, Adamawa – 25, Niger – 6, Yobe – 37, Borno – 8, Jigawa – 37, Kano – 13, Taraba – 116, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) – 2.
Pref. Jega further told the journalists that his office was in receipt of several petitions and negative reports from the field, and announced that they were being investigated for necessary actions to be taken.
Some of the cases according to him included, under aged voting in Taraba State; hijack of two IMEC vehicles and killing of two ad-hoc staff by Boko Haram in Gombe State; and call for repeat elections in Rivers State by the All Progressive Congress (APC)
Others are election rigging by Polling Officers through deliberate delay of ballot papers and result sheets, as well as, outright disappearance with result sheets; torching of INEC office in Rivers by thugs; short hanging of ad-hoc staff with party loyalists in some states; and alleged malfunctioning of certain Card Readers.
According to him, INEC could only come out with its decision on the reported cases after investigations have been concluded.
He submitted that about .025 per cent of the total electorate figure were manually accredited and that about 500 out of the 150,000 Card Readers deployed for the polls malfunctioned.
The INEC chairman also blamed reported late arrival of men and materials on refusal of drivers attached to the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) who almost breached the contractual agreement earlier reached with them but for the intervention of their national leaders.
He commended Nigerians, the security agencies, the election observers and other stakeholders for their cooperation and understanding and promised making the remaining segments of the general elections an improved conduct.
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