Election Didn’t Hold In Over 100 Polling Units in Abia North – Coalition of Election Observers

Maryam Aminu

The Coalition of Election Observers has said that election did not hold in over 100 polling units across 3 Local Government Areas – Ohafia, Arochukwu and Isuikwuato in Abia North Senatorial districts with over 80,000 registered voters.

The Head of Coalition for Abia North 2023 Election, Rasheed Shuaib made this disclosure at a press briefing organized by the Coalition of Election Observers on Tuesday March 14th, 2023 in Abuja

According to Shuaibu, the 2023 Nigeria Senatorial Election in Abia State was held on 25th February, 2023 to elect the 3 Senators from Abia State, one from each of the State’s 3 senatorial Districts

Speaking on the Abia North Senatorial District election, he said about 500 accredited INEC domestic observers were deployed by the Coalition of Election Observers to all the 5 LGAs in Abia North Senatorial District for the February 25th General election.

According to the INEC Electoral Guidelines for election, the official opening of the polling units is by 8:30am but from our observation, the election was below the standard and acceptable electoral practice, contrary to INEC Electoral Acts and guidelines and against the wishes and expectations of the electorates as there was late arrival of INEC Ad-hoc Staff and electoral materials

The Coalition decried the unavailability of security agencies in some polling units.
” In some cases, there were no attached law enforcement agencies that will escort the INEC materials to the various polling units and ensure calmness during and after the election ”

As parts of their observations, Shuaib noted that the BVAS that was supposed to be used to authenticate voters in all the polling units where elections were held, was either not functioning or not used at all

Also observed was the changes of some INEC Officials and also collation which was supposed to be done at the ward level was done at the LGA with some missing results especially in Bende LGA

Shuaib added that at the notice of some irregularities and logistic challenges, the INEC returning officer after speaking with the Resident Electoral Officer in Umuahia assured observers, party agents and others in Ohafia that there will be a rerun election on Sunday 26th February, 2023 and till date no rerun election was conducted in those affected places.

“Calling result of unfinished election, not posting results in polling units, negates the transparency of the voting process across the board in most of the polling units in Abia North Senatorial District” said the head of Coalition for Abia North election

The Coalition urged INEC to as a matter of urgency fix a date to conduct a rerun election or cancel the election as a result of irregularities

They further tasked INEC to critically look into the distribution of both sensitive and non- sensitive materials ahead of the Governorship and State Assembly election.

The Commission should adequately attached police officers that will escort both the election materials and INEC Ad-hoc staff,as this was one of the reasons election didn’t hold in Ohafia,Arochukwu etc

He added that there should be adequate arrangement between the commission and the major transport operators on how to convey the election materials to the polling units

He advised there should be proper re training of the INEC Presiding officers who are going to handle the BVAS