The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has said any candidate declared winner under duress in Saturday’s Governorship and States House of Assembly elections will not be issued Certificate of Return.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, on Thursday announced some tough measures against those who might want to manhandle his staff during the meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security held at the commission’s Conference Room in Abuja.
He condemned the act of abducting and taking the commission’s staff hostage in order to disrupt elections insisting that those who benefit from such “bad behaviour” would not be rewarded in the coming election.
He also said the commission will record zero votes and cancel the results of polling units where its personnel deliberately failed to deploy the Smart Card Readers.
“The commission is concerned that many of our materials, including ballot boxes, voting cubicles, voter registers and Smart Card Readers were lost to acts of hooliganism and thuggery in the elections held two weeks ago. Most worrisome is the attack on electoral officials.
“Some of our staff were abducted and taken hostage in an attempt to disrupt elections or influence the outcome. In fact, some of the supplementary elections were caused by such acts of thuggery.
“I am confident that working together with the security agencies, we will consolidate the largely peaceful conduct of the Presidential and National Assembly elections while also taking decisive steps to deal with the minority of violators’ intent on disrupting the conduct of peaceful elections.
“However, the commission will not tolerate the act of holding our officials hostage and forcing them to declare winners under duress. Where such occurs, the commission will not reward bad behaviour by issuing them Certificates of Return.
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“We have once again reconfigured the Smart Card Readers for the elections on Saturday. The use of the card readers is mandatory and there will be no exemption to their deployment for accreditation of voters.
“Under our regulations and guidelines, there are clear penalties for the deliberate failure to deploy them on the part of our members of staff. Where such happens with the connivance of communities, the result of election in the polling unit(s) will be cancelled and zero vote will be recorded.”
Yakubu, disclosed that governorship election would hold in 29 states, states assembly poll will elect 991 members of Houses of Assembly in all the states of the Federation, while six Chairmen and 62 councillors will be elected for the Area Councils in the Federal Capital Territory.
He further disclosed that in addition to elections into 1,082 constituencies nationwide, the commission would conduct supplementary elections in 14 states of the federation covering seven Senatorial Districts and 24 federal constituencies.
The supplementary elections, according to him, are as a result of electoral fraud, violence and thuggery perpetrated by political thugs and politicians in the February 23 elections.
He expressed confidence that all polling units would open at 8am nationwide on Saturday.