INEC must improve on Presidential election – CDD

The Center for Democracy and Development (CDD) has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to improve on its  performance at the last election as the nation goes to poll this Saturday.

Pointing to some contentious issues that marred the National Assembly and Presidential elections, CDD said INEC needs to clarify issues surrounding cancellation of some results of the poll.

Director of CDD, Idayat Hassan at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, pointed at discrepancies in the collation of results.

Hassan added that the commission should tackle the logistics challenges that affected the February 23 polls, such as delays that were as a result of late arrival of election materials and personnel as well as the inability of officials to move election results from polling units to the Collation centres due to lack of transportation.

She also urged INEC to ensure that election officials use smart card readers nationwide, describing the none use of card readers as a violation of INEC’s guidelines.

“Smart card readers must be made compulsory nationwide rather than in some parts of the country and zero votes must be recorded for all polling units where the SCRs are not used,” Hassan said.

“The patchy use of SCRs further cause voting delays that could affect the smooth conduct of the elections.

“Despite the assurances by the election management body that it was ready to conduct the election on February 23, there were significant delays in the opening of polling units and insufficient materials across the country when voting did get underway on that day.

“More so, Election Day was characterized by localized incidents of voter intimidation, ballot box snatching/destruction and general voter apathy as the national voter turn out rate dipped from 43.7% in 2015 to just 35.6%.”