Nigeria Content Online

International
observers have applauded the conduct of Saturday’s presidential election
but have cited several areas that need to be improved upon ahead of the
governorship polls next week.

The Commonwealth,
National Democratic Institute (NDI), European Union (EU) and the
International Republican Institute issued separate post-election
assessments yesterday amid reports of violent protest against the
outcome of the election in Kano, Kaduna and Bauchi states.

The Commonwealth
mission said the April 2011 elections marked a “genuine celebration of
democracy” in Nigeria saying that previous notions that the nation can
only hold flawed elections be discarded.

Mr Mogae admitted
that the parliamentary polls had procedural problems although there were
improvements. Asked whether he would advise Nigerians to accept the
outcome of the polls, he said: “I say yes,” adding that the
imperfections noticed do not point to deliberate “mischief.” The NDI
said its observation unveiled the inadequacies of the “complicated and
multi-tiered” collation process which the mission said was vulnerable to
human error and manipulation as tabulation proceeds from the polling
unit to the electoral office.

As the statements
were read on Monday in Abuja, fears mounted about the breakdown of law
and order in the Federal Capital Territory as clashes erupted in Dutse,
Mararaba areas of the Federal Capital Territory with no certain number
of casualties.

Already, the NDI led
by the former Canadian Prime Minister, Joe Clark, said its coverage of
the pre-election and the election days, showed there have been 135
politically-motivated deaths.

The election
monitoring teams condemned the renewed unrest yesterday urging aggrieved
candidates in the polls to seek judicial redress.

“Any post election
violence will be regrettable,” said Festus Mogae, the chief observer of
the Commonwealth team and former president of Botswana. “If it is
happening, it is regrettable.”

Assessment

The monitors praised
the poll on the one hand and on the other, criticised series of
processes from the accreditation to counting of results although they
agree the setbacks were minimal to affect the wider result for the
entire nation.

The teams complained
about overcrowded polling stations despite claims by the Independent
National Electoral Commission that sub voting units will be established
for centres beyond 300 voters.

The EU team observed
that for 633 random polling units it monitored across the 36 states,
only 14% were split as INEC directed with the rest having an average 860
voters.

Attempts to induce
voters were noticed in 17 percent, while party agents interfered in 26%.
In spite of these, counting was overall evaluated positively in 91%, it
said.