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Five days after the
National Assembly elections, the Independent National Electoral
Commission has yet to release the official comprehensive results for
the polls, breaching its self-imposed deadline of 48 hours. Ahead of
the polls last Saturday, the commission announced it will push for a
prompt release of the total results within two days after balloting, as
part of a series of measures to shore up its commitment to the
transparency of the exercise before Nigerians.

In the commission’s
reckoning, a well-conducted election would remove delays with the
results and also curtail the propensity of multiple litigations that
have weighed on the outcome of past nationwide polls.

Yet, the complete
results have remained unreleased 120 hours after, and 24 hours to the
second in a series of national elections.

Officials have
struggled to justify the delay which has continued even after Tuesday’s
meeting between the commission’s leadership and the 37 Resident
Electoral Commissioners. They argue that though the results had not
been centrally released within 48 hours, they were announced at the
state level before 24 hours.

INEC is investigating

At Wednesday’s
media briefing, the Chairman, Attahiru Jega, said: “What is worth doing
is worth doing well. We do not want to make mistakes,” he remarked to a
question posed after the main telecast interview. He said with the
number of petitions and complaints from politicians reaching his
office, the commission chose to verify some claims-for instance, the
Anambra senate tussle between Dora Akunyili and Chris Ngige- before
making a final declaration.

Despite a near
certain prospect that whatever results is posted by the electoral body
will be contested in court as many aggrieved candidates have indicated,
he said the commission should better be certain of its result before
certifying one.

He assured that the
results should be uploaded to the commissions’ website on Thursday.
However, as of 6 pm yesterday, the document was yet to be placed on the
web.

Emmanuel Umenger,
the commission’s Director for Public Affairs said many of the states
had yet to fully transmit their results to the commission assuring that
the electoral body would not delay in making that public as soon as
they are received.

“It is a public
document and they will be made public,” he said yesterday. Mr Jega’s
spokesperson, Kayode Idowu, said the 48 hours earlier announced by the
commission was not to be regarded as a “dogma” but rather as a
guideline to result release.

Meanwhile, the
commission has reassured the last Saturday’ mode of voters
accreditation, which some international observers and political parties
say is rigorous, would not be suspended during the presidential
election tomorrow.

Modified open ballot continues

Mr Jega told a
delegation of the European Union Election Observation Mission to
Nigeria, that the Modified Open Ballot System will not be jettisoned.

He said since the
prevalent national mood was that the commission must not fail, it would
be unwise to adopt a new voting strategy midway into the general
elections. “In the meeting that we had on Tuesday, we paid a lot of
attention to strengthening the accreditation system, making it more
efficient, and also the voting procedure.

“With time when we
restore sufficient credibility to the process, then we can begin to
look at other ways of ensuring a more convenient procedure. But for
now, we will make do with the Open Modified Ballot System,” he said.

On preparations for Saturday, he said the needed materials are
already on the ground and have been distributed to the states and from
the reports we are getting, in many of the states, deployment to
far-flung corners had already commenced.”