Victor EzejaAs voting for the presidential and national assembly elections ends, the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) has formally opened the National Collation Centre in Abuja where results for the presidential election will be announced.
The INEC national chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, who declared the centre open on Sunday afternoon, set the ground rules for the proceedings, adding that the announcement of results will begin at 6 pm.
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He appealed to political parties and the media to “draw their figures only from the data released by INEC as the only body constitutionally responsible for releasing official figures for elections.”
While explaining the procedure for the collation of election results, Prof Yakubu said results for each State of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) shall be presented by the State Collation Officer for the Presidential Election (SCOPE).
He added that the SCOPE, “following the format for the presentation of results, shall loudly announce the votes scored by each political party in the State, including reports of cancellations and areas where elections did not hold (if any).”
The INEC chairman said that the collation will remain open until the final determination of the 2023 Presidential election.
He said that collation will begin once state collation officers arrive from various states with results.
“As soon as any of the SCOPEs arrives, the process of collation will begin. Once the process begins, the Collation Centre will be open all day and all night, subject only to short breaks as may be announced by the Returning Officer,” Yakubu stated.
The presidential and national assembly elections held on Saturday witnessed a series of hiccups such as violence, late arrival of election materials and INEC officials, failure to upload election results from polling units to the INEC Result Viewing portal as required by the Electoral Act 2022, among other challenges.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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