The European Union Election Observer Mission (EU EOM) has raised concerns about the 2023 Senatorial, House of Reps and presidential election in Nigeria.
The EU EOM, which has 110 observers from EU member states and Canada, Norway, and Switzerland who monitor the conduct of the election, said that electoral exercise has been undermined by many inconsistencies.
The observers said in their preliminary report that confidence in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) significantly waned during the election due to the electoral body’s lack of sufficient planning.
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“Millions of Nigerian voters cast their vote in the Presidential, Senate and House of Representatives elections despite prevailing challenges. I commend the patience of voters as well as the commitment of youth, who have contributed hugely to the democratic process,” said Barry Andrews, the head observer, the EU EOM.
While acknowledging that INEC’s efficiency was hindered by the recent cash shortage, Andrews said voters trust in the electoral umpires further deteriorated because of the irregularities which marred the election, including lack of transparency.
“Overall, stakeholders had expressed confidence in INEC’s independence, professionalism, and voter information efforts, but this decreased ahead of elections. INEC lacked efficient planning and transparency during critical stages of the electoral process, while on election day trust in INEC was seen to further reduce due to delayed polling processes and information gaps related to much anticipated access to results on its Results Viewing Portal (IReV),” he said.
Andrews said that besides lack of transparency, their findings showed that election day was marked by late deployment and opening and that polling procedures were not always followed.
The 2022 Electoral Act stipulated that election results be transmitted electronically to INEC portal from every polling unit. This law was apparently not followed. Andrew said that they witnessed poll workers having trouble filling out the forms with the results that were then not posted online.
He said even though the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, and the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) were implemented to ensure the polls were credible, the BVAS did not work as expected when it came to uploading the results, which raised concerns.
Other observer groups have also raised concern about the conduct of the election, with most agreeing with the EU EOM that the exercise lacks transparency.
However, Andrew, on behalf of the group, sued for calm while the collation of result is still ongoing.
“The tabulation exercise is still ongoing, and we will follow the processes until the end. I encourage stakeholders to continue demonstrating commitment to a peaceful process – before and after the results are announced. Any dispute arising from the electoral process should be addressed through established legal channels,” he urged.