INEC Releases Preliminary Report On April 11 Elections

The electoral body in Nigeria has released a preliminary election
report, saying the general assessment of the governorship election
across the nation showed that "the process went very well".

In the report released by the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) on Sunday, 88.9 per cent of polling units opened for
accreditation between 8:00am and 10:00am across the nation.

According to INEC, only 5.2 per cent of polling units were yet to open
as at 1:00pm and that 73 per cent of the polling units had commenced
voting by 2:30pm.

INEC also said that the process of accreditation with Smart Card
Readers were successful in a majority of the polling units.

The electoral body added that initial challenges were recorded in Edo
and Abia states but that its technical teams deployed to support the
states were able to resolve the issues in a timely manner.

INEC further noted that many parts of the country remained relatively
peaceful during the elections, but added that some states, however,
recorded a significant number of violent incidents.

Affected states are Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ebonyi and Ondo.

Calls For Election Cancelation

INEC's records showed there were 66 reports of violent incidents
targeted at polling units, the Commission's officials, voters and
election materials.

The Commission said it was investigating the incidents and would do
everything within its powers to bring culprits to justice.

In an interview on Saturday, the spokesman for the chairman of the
INEC, Mr Kayode Idowu said that it may cancel elections in areas were
violent incidents were recorded.

Reports of violence in Abia, Akwa Ibom and Rivers State, have led to
calls for cancelation of election results in some of the places where
violence was recorded. But Mr Idowu said that the Returning Officer
reserved the right to decide if the elections in the areas would be
canceled.

But Mr Idowu said "there are guidelines and rules that the commission
applies for dealing with cases where you have unwarranted infringement
on the process, like ballot box snatches and stuffs like that.

He said: "The Returning Officer is empowered to take a decision on
what to do with areas where there have been violation of the process,
like snatching of the ballot box or card readers.

"If the Returning Officer considers it serious enough, he can cancel
or void the elections in such areas. The decision resides with the
Returning Officer.
--ChannelsTV