The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has vowed to withhold Certificates of Return to candidates in places where its officials are held hostage or forced to declare winners under duress during Saturday’s elections.
The electoral umpire also said it will record zero votes where its personnel deliberately failed to deploy the Smart Card Readers.
This was disclosed by the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, during a meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security held at the commission’s Conference Room in Abuja on Thursday.
Yakubu said, “The commission is concerned that many of our 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 is the attack on electoral officials.
“Some of our staff were abducted and taken hostage in an attempt to disrupt elections or influence the outcome. In fact, some of the supplementary elections were caused by such acts of thuggery.
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“I am confident that working together with the security agencies, we 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.
“However, the commission will not tolerate the act of holding our officials hostage and forcing them to declare winners under duress. Where such occurs, the commission will not reward bad behaviour by issuing them Certificates of Return.
“We have once again reconfigured the Smart Card Readers for the elections on Saturday. The use of the card readers is mandatory and there will be no exemption to their deployment for accreditation of voters.
“Under our regulations and guidelines, there are clear penalties for the deliberate failure to deploy them on the part of our members of staff. Where such happens with the connivance of communities, the result of election in the polling unit(s) will be cancelled and zero vote will be recorded.”
Yakubu made it known that the governorship election would be conducted in 29 states, state assembly poll will elect 991 members of Houses of Assembly in all the states of the Federation, six Chairmen as well as 62 councillors for the Area Councils in the Federal Capital Territory.
The INEC chairman added that, in addition to elections into 1,082 constituencies nationwide, the commission would conduct supplementary elections in 14 states of the federation covering seven Senatorial Districts and 24 federal constituencies.
The supplementary elections, he said, were necessitated by electoral fraud, violence and thuggery perpetrated by political thugs and politicians in the February 23 elections.
He gave the assurance that, having distributed the election materials to all states of the federation and the FCT, all polling units would open at 8 am nationwide.
INEC also revealed that the Certificates of Return for governors and deputy-governors-elect, members of state Houses of Assembly-elect and chairmen and councillors for the FCT “shall be presented in each state of the federation by the Supervising National Commissioners and the Resident Electoral Commissioners on a date to be announced next week.
For Senatorial Districts and Federal Constituencies in which winners have already emerged, Yakubu said the commission would issue their Certificates of Return next week.
The INEC Chairman said, “On behalf of the commission, I extend our deepest condolence to the families of those who lost their lives, including personnel of the security agencies. We are glad that the police have made several arrests and investigation is ongoing.
“I wish to assure Nigerians that the commission will work closely with the police to ensure the diligent prosecution of all violators of our electoral laws. Citizens are asking for effective but non-intrusive protection before, during and immediately after the elections in which their rights are respected and their choices safeguarded.”