The Chairman of the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Tuesday released
the processes and procedures for the elections as well as the processes of
releasing the results during the polls by the presiding officers.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ summit
with political parties, Jega informed those present that accreditation of
voters would take place from 8a.m. till the last person to join the queue at
1p.m. is accredited, while voting would commence at 1.30p.m. and would end when
the last person on the queue has voted.
The INEC chairman further said only
persons with the permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) would be accredited, stating
that the card readers would be used during the accreditation process.
He said each political party is
entitled to an agent at the polling station and that the agent must be properly
accredited in accordance with the regulations and guidelines.
According to Jega, “On March 28,
three ballot boxes will be used in each of the polling/voting points. Ballot
boxes with red cover is for putting a thumb printing ballot paper by a voter
for the presidential election, ballot box with a black cover is putting thumb
printing ballot paper by a voter for the senatorial election and the green
ballot box is for putting thumb printed ballot paper by a voter for the House
of Representatives.
“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 minimise putting the ballot paper into the wrong ballot
box.”
As a result of this, he said there
shall be two sorting of voting at the polling units, explaining that it was
meant to ensure that any wrongly placed ballot papers re removed and put back
into the right ballot boxes and the second is meant to determine the votes cast
by voters for 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 rearing 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 a
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 collation 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.”
Jega further explained that hard
copies of result sheets from the polling units would be scanned, converted to
PDF format and put in a database, which be made accessible for viewing an
download via the INEC website. This, he said, is to ensure the accuracy of the
collated results.
He also used the occasion to assure
Nigerians of a credible, fair and transparent election at all level.
No comments:
Post a Comment