FG To Bar Officials During Ballot Counting

This move is seen as part of government’s cost-saving measure as the cost of conducting elections keep mounting  and also taking into consideration resources incurred in the conduct of rerun polls after court annulments.

It was learnt that about 20 National Assembly elections have been billed for reruns after been upturned at the tribunals in the first quarter of the year.

The Sun reported that a presidency source disclosed that the directive will soon be made public which wish to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to implement the new rule barring voters especially government officials, to leave polling units after casting their votes.


It was learnt that the directive is to make sure that election results are not manipulated by interested parties, which has made the announcement of result at variance with the voters’ pattern of voting.

The source said: “The government is embarrassed by the number of elections voided by tribunals and appellate courts. They don’t reflect a good image for the electoral process in the nation. Government is ready to introduce measures to bring a change for cleaner and more credible elections.”
Those that will be excluded from polling booth after casting vote are: council chairmen, either elected or appointed, government appointees, commissioners, special advisers, secretary to state governments and others.

“The Electoral Act has enough provision for persons and officials of the INEC, the media, the law enforcement bodies, candidates’ returning officers and others that must be present at polls counting and announcement. Therefore, anyone out of these designated officials, is not needed because their presence in the past, caused falsification of the outcome of elections.

“It is the interference that causes rigging, violence, lack of trust of the system by the masses and ultimately, annulment of election results. Elections rerun take a toll on the economy of the INEC and the nation. To conduct an election to fill a House of Representative slot in about two local governments that make up a constituency could cost INEC about N2 billion and in senatorial re-run elections, the cost is far higher.


“If, for instance, about five candidates in the election spend an average of N300 million, that is another N1.5 billion. At last, the money  becomes waste as candidates who feel aggrieved by falsified results go to the tribunal to spend another round of money and that creates tension, which threatens the security of the area and ultimately, the nation.

“The cost of every rerun is so colossal that if government takes the appropriate measures to guard against them by eliminating those unwanted agents at the state and council levels, we would have saved so much to make our elections more credible,” the source concluded.

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