The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials at Somolu Local Government Area of Lagos State barred journalists, party agents and observers from the collation centre.

As against the practise of collating results publicly in the interest of fairness, the returning officer of the Governorship and House of Assembly Elections, took the results from the wards to an inner office where she and some selected persons carried out the exercise.

Journalists and observers who had converged on the collation centre at the end of voting and polling units collation on Saturday were denied access to the inner office.

Those at the inner office spent long hours working on the results from the ward.

At about 4:58am on Sunday, the returning officer alongside police escorts left the INEC LGA office at Somolu with the results.

It is unclear if they were headed for the state collation center at Birrel Avenue, Yaba, as they refused to address the media.

Although party agents were not allowed in the inner office where the selective collation took place, they were later to sign and obtain duplicate sheets.

An observer, who spoke off the record for the fear of being victimised, said, “After spending the night outside at the INEC office , I was able to get result snapshot from an official whom I had met in the last presidential election. The person was invited to the inner office.”

Somolu is one of the LGAs that the ruling party lost to the opposition in the presidential election.

Activities will kick off at the State Collation Centre by 11am, according to an earlier announcement by the electoral commission.

The military gave us the constitution that we are killing to defend today, so why demonizing the military?
The military handed over to politicians who asked for democracy. Yet these 'quasi-democrats' cannot manage a simple election that other democratic countries organise without rancour and rigging. They claim to be democrats but threaten other Nigerians from freely voting their choice. They kill, they maim, they mutilate results and steal people's votes.

Nigeria's election swallows 300 billion Naira every four years, voting is done on a flimsy paper and fake results are manually mutilated and written in the bedroom of politicians after collation at the polling stations. Are the voters who stand in the rain and sunshine that worthless?

Political thugs are everywhere threatening and killing people who want to vote their choice. How is that different from the Liberian war where people's hands were cut off to prevent them from voting?

The Solution
In the event that judiciary becomes too cowardly to call a spade a spade and end rubber-stampping this open electoral heist that has negated every norms of democratic process, the military must must not hesitate to save the country from being thrown into anarchy by politicians who do not believe in the rights of others in a free democracy.

How will they do this? An interim government should take charge and fix the electoral system to ensure that minimal or zero human interference is allowed in our electoral system.

A 100% electronic voting system is what is needed now. Voters get accredited with their voter's card ONLY ONCE, and then vote in a paperless electronic manner, the votes are recorded and sent directly to the server and seen on the INEC IREV in REAL-TIME.
It has to be transparent, so that losers and winners will agree with the results.

Rigging of elections usually happens between when ballots are counted and when the votes are collated by INEC. That is usually when the results are mutilated or destroyed and the fake ones recorded..That should be stemmed in the tide by e-polling and e-collation and e-transmission of votes. A lot of money will be saved from printing worthless ballot papers that can be snatched anytime by political thugs trying to subvert the process.

Politicians who have vested interests cannot give us a perfect electoral system. When the debate for BVAS and IreV was brought up on the floor of the Senate last year, many sitting politicians afraid of loss of popularity back home, opposed the inclusion of clause 'INEC shall transmit electronically', this has given INEC and politicians the wherewithal to claim 'there is no network, we will transmit the votes when we get to the office', allowing the sustenance of an electoral system that is fraught with heavy irregularities.

Videos abound of INEC presiding officials who have been bribed by politicians telling the voters 'we will not upload until we get to the office', of course we know that once they get to their office (or the sitting rooms of politicians), the results are mutilated or changed outrightly. That's an insult to the Nigerian voters.

No politician will allow such reform to happen, not even Tinubu will let that happen. Only a dispassionate interim military government can institute an electoral reform that will be fair to all and hand it over to Nigerians.
We need to consider this a surgical procedure that will strengthen true democracy in the aftermath.

Rodimi20000000:
Apart from only 1 problem in one polling unit. This election has been mostly peaceful.

Ofemmanu1:
Yeeboe go cry taya