TheCable

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it will soon conclude and make returns in the constituencies where voting and collation were done in compliance with the electoral act in the Rivers rerun election.

Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, the commission’s director of publicity and voter education, disclosed this in a statement.

INEC said the decision was arrived at after holding meeting with the Rivers resident electoral commissioner (REC), supervisor and monitors of the March 19 election.

“INEC will conclude and make returns in constituencies where it is satisfied that voting and collation were done in substantial compliance with the electoral act and our guidelines,” the statement read.

“Further details as to the constituencies and nature of the exercise will be announced by the REC in the next few days.”

It said the commission had considered the submissions of the officials and undertook an audit of its personnel deployed as polling officials and for related duties in the elections.

It acknowledged that there were some challenges in its operational efficiency, especially as it concerns the production and customisation of result sheets used for the election.

“Specifically, there was omission of the original watermark in the result sheets for a few polling units in three federal constituencies,” the statement read.

“There was also omission of some delineation details in 47 of over 20,000 booklets produced.”

It added that political parties that participated in the election and their agents witnessed the distribution of all the election materials.

“The commission wishes to emphatically state that there were no fake result sheets or any fake materials used in the conduct of the election.”

It added that INEC would at a date to be decided, conduct fresh elections in all local government areas, constituencies and polling units where March 19 elections were disrupted before voting was concluded.