February 28, (THEWILL) – Intercontinental Leadership Initiative, an accredited observer of the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, has faulted INEC’s logistics arrangements and deployment ahead of the elections.
In a post-election statement issued in Jos and signed by its team leader, Stafford Bisong, the group noted that logistics shortfall, inadequate security provisions, BVAS malfunction, and even late arrival of INEC personnel and election materials in some cases contributed to marring the process, from accreditation to results collation, as results were uploaded to the INEC portal offline.
According to the statement, “The INEC Officials and the ADHOC staff arrived late at most Polling Units due to insufficient vehicles to transport the officials to their various posts of duties.”
It also noted that “most polling units suffered few electoral materials provided for the voters: Nyes 018 Polling Unit, Mangu LGA, Plateau State, where one BVAS was to serve over a thousand people.”
On the security arrangements, the group said, “Nigerians were promised a safe and secure environment for voting by the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, CFR, but we all can attest to records of violence and insecurities in many polling centres, and that can only mean that the number of security personnel in every polling unit is not enough or otherwise, many polling units had only one security personnel.”
The statement cited an incident where a Police Officer in the Halle Primary School Polling Unit of Mangu Halle Ward 2 Collation Centre, Mangu LGA of Plateau State, reported that each polling unit was assigned with one police officer.
It noted, “However, some polling units had no security personnel at all, like Sarki 3 Polling Unit, Panyam Ward, had no security personnel even during the voting exercise.”
On the voting process, the Observer Group said some voters were texted by the INEC on election day for a change of polling stations and as such, voting was made difficult for Nigerians.
It noted that the PDP gubernatorial Candidate, Barr. Caleb Mutfwang, received a text message from INEC on election day for a change of polling unit, while some of the polling units reported to have some political parties omitted in the ballot papers.”
Counting of ballots, it maintained, was “in the presence of all the party agents and stakeholders present. Although some were taken as late as 2:00 am or thereabout”, saying, “Albarkans Primary School Polling Unit, Tudun Wada, Jos North LGA Plateau State” is one polling unit that experienced this, regretting that “this led to the lateness in the conclusion of voting and counting of ballots up until till 2:00 am the next day.”
According to its observation, “Some of the voters’ cards were not recognised by the BVAS, but their names were found in the printout documents provided, and thus were not allowed to vote.
“There was no real time for results uploads in virtually 70% of the polling units observed. Results were uploaded offline since there were issues with the INEC result viewing portal”, it stated.
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