The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC says it will not issue Certificate of Return to candidates in places where its officials were held hostage or forced to declare winners under duress in tomorrow’s Governorship and State House of Assembly elections.
The commission also threatened to record zero vote and cancel the results of polling units where its personnel deliberately failed to deploy the Smart Card Readers.
The Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, stated this during the meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security held at the commission’s Conference Room in Abuja yesterday.
He said that the commission is concerned that many of its materials, including ballot boxes, voting cubicles, voter registers and Smart Card Readers were lost to acts of hooliganism and thuggery in the elections held two weeks ago.
Most worrisome according to him was the attack on electoral officials. Professor Yakubu expressed confidence that working together with security agencies, will consolidate the largely peaceful conduct of the Presidential and National Assembly elections while also taking decisive steps to deal with the minority of violators’ intent on disrupting the conduct of peaceful elections.
According to him, governorship election would be conducted in twenty-nine States, State Assembly poll will elect nine hundred and ninety-nine members of Houses of Assembly in all the states of the
Federation, six Chairmen as well as sixty-two councilors for the Area Councils in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja.
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