As preparations for Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections enter final phase, the inspector- general of police, Suleman Abba, and political parties yesterday differed over whether voters should leave voting centres immediately after casting their ballots.
While the IGP called on political parties to educate and instruct their supporters to obey the advice – arguing that the vote-
and-wait plan is susceptible to exploitation for violence, the political parties countered that during the 2011 elections, voters waited after casting their votes and there was no chaos.
The secretary of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Sani Shinkafi, who recalled that voters stayed behind in 2011, wondered why it should be any different this time.
But defending his position, the IGP said if voters stay back they stood the chances of committing electoral offences, especially that part of the Electoral Act that concerns loitering. “If you stay,” he said, “there is the likelihood that you may commit any of the electoral laws. The law says that you should stay 300 metres away from the polling stations. My advice is that when
you cast your vote, don’t stay behind. I will do everything necessary to ensure the credibility and protection of the elections.” This comes as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega,
declared that the commission was ready to hold the best elections in the country, vowing that the commission will not be partisan.
Jega further released the procedures for the elections and for releasing the results of polls by the presiding officers. These were the high points of events at INEC national stakeholders’ summit on the 2015 general elections held yesterday
in Abuja.
Countering, leaders of the political parties at the summit disagreed with him on grounds that no law forbids voters
staying at the polling stations to monitor the outcome of their votes till the results are announced.
Political parties who took turns to disagree with Abba include Alliance for Democracy (AD), African Democratic Congress (ADC), All Progressives Congress (APC), All Progressives Grand
Alliance (APGA), Independent Democrats (ID), National Conscience Party (NCP), Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM)
among other political parties. They also queried the use of the military to monitor the election and why the federal government would not obey the court order to that effect.
The police chief however returned to the podium, declaring that “the military would not be deployed at the polling stations.
Police and other enforcement agencies are constitutional empowered to maintain peace at the polling stating. Military
would be invited when the police cannot maintain peace at the polling stations. They would support the civil authority
when the need arises. “I advise that you cast your votes and go. It is advisory and I so advise. On loitering, by casting your votes that is lawful purpose has expired.”
He explained that there would be three policemen at the 150,000 polling stations across the over 120,000 polling stations. He added that adequate security will also be provided at 9000 collation centres. Abba however advised that security threat would be avoided if INEC ensures rigging and manipulation of results do not occur, and that electoral materials arrive on time.
He also cautioned politicians against hate campaigns, malicious directives to their supporters and exploitation of thugs for elections.
Jega, while speaking earlier, said the extension of the elections provided INEC the opportunity to “further perfect the electoral process for the delivery of free, fair, credible and peaceful elections, to the satisfaction of the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians.”
While he assured that the commission will not be partisan, Jega revealed that accreditation of voters would take place from 8am in the morning till the last person to join the queue at 1 pm is accredited, while voting would commence at 1:30 pm and end when the last person on the queue has voted.
He also said that only persons with the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) would be accredited, stating that the Smart Card Readers (SCRs) would be used during the accreditation process. He said that each political party is entitled to an agent at the polling station and the agent must be properly accredited in accordance with the regulations and guidelines. Jega said: “On March 28, three ballot boxes will be used in each of the polling/ voting points. Ballot boxes with red cover is for ballot paper by a voter for the presidential election. Ballot box with a
black cover is for the senatorial election and the green ballot box is for the House of Representatives election.
“Each ballot paper has corresponding colour stripes to assist voters in putting the right ballot paper in the right ballot box. For each polling/voting point, there is a designated official called overseer, whose primary job is to ensure that voters put the right ballot paper into the right ballot box. Political parties need to factor this into their campaigns to minimize putting the ballot paper into thewrong ballot box.”
As such he said that there shall be two sorting of voting in the polling units and voting point, and explained that it is to ensure that any wrongly placed ballot paper is removed and put back into the right ballot box and the second is to determine votes cast by voters to a political party/candidate.
According to the INEC chairman, “At the end of the sorting and counting of the ballot papers, the results are to be announced to the hearing of all and a result poster is to be completed and
pasted at the polling units. Copies of the result sheets are to be given accredited party agents who are present while the
original is to be conveyed to the ward level coalition centre by the presiding officer accompanied by the security
agents and the party agents.
“At the ward level coalition centre, if there are complaints and/or evidence of alteration of accreditation figures on the
result sheets, the information on accreditation saved on the Card Readers used would be used by the collation officer to decide on the case,” he explained.
Jega also disclosed “that hard copies of result sheets from the polling units would be scanned, converted to PDF format and
put in a database, which will be made accessible for viewing and download via the INEC website.” He said this would help to ensure the accuracy of the collated results.
Meanwhile, the IGP announced the restriction of movements from 8 am to 5pm on Election Day. He appealed to people to respect the restriction of movement and also to accept the outcome of the election, advising those with complaints to
approach the tribunals rather than take extra judicial steps “as they would be not be allowed.”


leadership.ng/news/420013/polls-again-igp-political-parties-differ-over-vote-and-go-advice