GUIDELINES FOR THE GENERAL ELECTIONS APRIL 2011
PRESIDING OFFICER
1. The Presiding Officer is in charge of the Polling Unit.
2. You are to sign for all electoral materials collected on Form EC.25B – Electoral Materials Receipt Form.
3. You are to ensure that the electoral materials issued to your polling unit are of the right type and quantity. This you will do by going through the materials one by one.
4. The Voters' Register given to you should be inspected page by page to ensure that all the pages are signed and stamped with the INEC stamp and that no page is missing.
5. You shall be assisted by two poll assistants in the discharge of your responsibilities.
6. Accreditation will be from 8am – 12 noon.
7. As voters arrive at the Polling Unit for accreditation, you shall check their voter's card against their names in the voter's register. Please note that voters' waiting in the queue at 12 noon shall be accredited; but any voter coming after 12 noon shall not be accredited. A temporary voter's card only shall be acceptable for accreditation and voting.
8. Voting starts at 12:30pm and ends when the last person on the queue votes.
9. Once a voter is accredited, the index finger of his/her left hand will be marked with an indelible ink.
10. You shall next enter in Form EC 8A – Statement of Result form in figures and words,
A. The number of voters on the Register;
And
B. The number of accredited voters.
11. After the accreditation period, you shall introduce the Poll Assistants, security agents and accredited Party Agents.
12. Explain the voting procedure to the voters as well as all activities that constitute electoral offences and the penalties for committing such offences as listed in the Electoral Act 2010.
13. Next invite all accredited voters to queue up in front of you in one single line. Where culture does not allow men and women to mingle in a queue, you shall allow separate queues for men and women.
14. Next count the number of all accredited voters on the queue and announce loudly to the hearing of all present the number of accredited voters in the queue.
15. Enter in Form EC 8A, the number of accredited voters waiting in the queue to vote in figures and words. Sign the form in the appropriate section and invite the polling agents to sign.
16. Then display the transparent ballot box to everyone present before voting commences.
17. Invite the voters to move one at a time to the Presiding Officer's table, and issue him/her with a stamped, signed and dated ballot paper.
18. Next ask the voter to move to the voting cubicle to thumb- print in the space opposite the symbol of the party of his/her choice and to drop the ballot paper in the ballot box in the full view of all present.
COUNTING OF VOTES
1. Empty the contents of the ballot box on the table.
2. Sort out the ballot papers according to party symbols.
3. Using the alphabetical order of name of the political parties, count loudly the number of votes scored by each candidate.
4. Then enter in Form EC 8A the number of votes scored by each candidate in the space provided in both figures and words.
5. Verify the poll result by cross checking;
A. The number of persons registered to vote at the center;
B. The number of accredited voters in the queue before voting commences; and
C. The total number of votes scored by the candidates.
6. Nullify the result where the total number of votes cast for the candidates exceeds the total number of people accredited to vote at the polling unit, after thorough verification.
7. Where the result is nullified, endorse Form EC 8A for the polling unit as follows: "Result Cancelled".
8. Immediately announce the nullification of the result to those present.
9. Next sign Form EC 8A and invite one Party Agent from each of the political parties to sign the Statement of Result Form.
10. Then give a copy of the duly completed and signed Form EC 8A to:
A. Each Party Agent,
B. The security agents.
11. Post a copy of the result at the Polling Unit.
12. Proceed immediately with the original copy and deliver to the Collation Officer at the Registration Area Center accompanied by security agents and Party Agents.
13. Return all the election materials used during the election to the Electoral Officer (EO) through the Supervisory Presiding Officer (SPO) for preservation.
COLLATION OFFICER
1. You shall be responsible for the collation of results either at:
A. Registration Area Center (RAC)
B. Local Government Area level
C. State Level.
REGISTRATION AREA LEVEL
1. The Registration Area Collation Officer is in charge of the Collation Centre.
2. You shall work in liaison with the security agents to see to the maintenance of law and order at the Collation Center.
3. You shall use Form EC 8B to collate votes entered in Form EC 8A submitted to you by the Presiding Officers, Polling Unit by Polling Unit to get the Registration Area level results by the candidates.
... materials deleted
UNQUOTE
New Date of Elections Not Feasible - Dele Momodu
Written by Dele Momodu Saturday, 02 April 2011 20:19
Today is certainly a very sad day in Nigeria. Our country men and women woke up early and headed to 120,000 polling units nationwide. They were determined to exercise their rights to vote for candidates of their choice. I saw the old and the young. I saw the able and the disabled united in the mission to perform their civic responsibilities and enforce the power of their votes. They stood in the scorching sun. They queued dutifully and enduredthe pain, hoping that for once, we will get it right. They never anticipated how incompetent and unprepared INEC was.Meanwhile, the inability of INEC to deliver voting materials to polling stations across the country has led to the postponement of the elections to Monday, 4th April, 2011. According to media reports, voting materials could not be airlifted from London due to shortage of cargo flights. In the light of the foregoing, I do not believe INEC is prepared to conduct a smooth National Assembly elections on Monday, 4th April, 2011.First, from my experience in global publishing operations, there is not much that can be achieved in the delivery and nationwide distribution of the voting materials within the next 48 hours. Second, there is no point disrupting commercial activities on Monday. Hard-working Nigerian citizens must not be made to pay for the mistakes of INEC. Nigerians must go to work and must not be kept in perpetual suffering till Tuesday. Also, students who have schools to attend and exams to write must not be disturbed by the election. Clearly, INEC needs time to prepare and must not be in a hurry to conduct fresh National Assembly elections when it can easily start on a clean slate with the presidential elections next Saturday, 9th April, 2011. Alternatively, the National Assembly elections can be postponed to next week Saturday when the presidential election was initially scheduled to hold or conducted as the last in the schedule of elections.It is too risky to go ahead with the National Assembly elections on Monday. If INEC runs into any complications on Monday, it will have adverse effects on the presidential election on Saturday. The National Assembly elections are more tedious than the others because they involve more candidates and thus require more logistics. If INEC goes ahead with the elections on Monday, by the time it concludes the whole process of collating results and addressing complaints, we will be looking at Thursday if not the weekend itself. INEC will be too fatigued to deal with the presidential election on Saturday.Dele MomoduPresidential CandidateNational Conscience Party (NCP)On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 4:03 PM, Mobolaji ALUKO <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:
PRESS STATEMENT 02 MARCH 2011
INEC UNWARRANTED FALSE AND UNWARRANTED HUGE COST
The postponement is an unwarranted false start and has levied unwarranted huge cost to the Nigerian people. It is highly regrettable and unpardonable; inspite of the apology tendered by Professor Attahiru Jega.
Questions! Questions! Questions! Why is it that Professor Jega and his team failed to postpone the election on Thursday or Friday when they noticed that the vendor has failed to deliver on schedule; in other words that the materials will not be on the ground as scheduled?
Why fail to save Nigerians the huge cost – of resources, energy, time, especially the opposition political parties?
Conference of Nigerian Political Parties {CNPP} had severally queried the failure of INEC to adopt open and transparent process template in the award of the contracts, instead INEC accepted names submitted from the presidency; for if the award of the contract of the materials which led to this faux pas was open and transparent the situation could have been different.
Professor Jega should sit-up and save Nigerian democracy which had been thoroughly discredited by misgovernace of the last ten years; the nation should not be shut down on Monday.
Consequently, 4 March National Assembly election is unfavourable, untenable and will only confer undue advantage to the ruling party; therefore the National Assembly election should on 9 March together with the Presidential election or postponed to the 23 April as the last election.
Osita Okechukwu
National Publicity Secretary
CNPP
________________________________________________________________________
On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Mobolaji ALUKO <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:
April 2, 2011
The National Chairman,
Independent National Electoral Commission,
Headquarters Office,
AbujaDear Sir,
MASSIVE DISENFRANCHISEMENT OF CPC VOTERS
I want to draw to your attention the information we have received from all over the country that in many constituencies, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) logo is not on the Ballot paper. This information has come to us from places as far apart as Ogun, Jigawa, Gombe, Anambra, Imo and Rivers States where voting seemed to have started before the announcement putting off the election was made.
2. We believe that free and fair elections include providing the opportunity for all those who have been registered to vote to do so. The absence of the CPC logo from the ballot papers means to us, a premeditated attempt to prevent our numerous supporters from voting for those they believe can bring the change they demand to their lives.
3. The embarrassing thing about this absence is that it is not national. It is selective. Why would there be the CPC logo on some ballot papers for, say, the House of Representatives election in some constituencies and it is absent in some other constituencies, even in the same state! The same story is being told of what is happening in some states with the election to the Senate.
4. Mr. Chairman, we are grateful to God that for some other reasons, the National Assembly elections were put off today. I wonder what would have happened if the elections had taken place and our supporters had complained of the exclusion of the logo of their party from the ballot papers and the security agencies had pounced on them for disturbing the peace! In our view there cannot be greater provocation and proof of an open denial of a people's right than deliberately preventing them from exercising a right the Constitution and the laws of the land grant.
5. If this lapse is discovered now, we wonder what awaits us in other elections. As one of the fastest growing political parties in the country, obviously because of the image of its presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, it is unthinkable that if a party is left out from the ballot papers you printed for the various elections, it would be that of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) whose logo is the PEN.
6. Our appeal is that you ensure that in the elections you conduct and which you have promised the whole world would be free, fair and transparent, the CPC is not denied full participation. We believe elections should be won through the ballot, not in courts which have proved to have problems of their own.
7 We suggest that you conduct the presidential and national assembly elections on April 9. After all, the gubernatorial and state assembly elections will be held on the same day, April 16. Why can't the presidential and national assembly elections be held on the same day too, for obvious reasons, including the fact that you can sort out the problem caused by the exclusion of some political parties from the ballot papers which MUST necessitate your ordering a reprint, and the fact that the banks would not have opened for stakeholders to collect money to meet their commitments to agents.
8. Failure to take to heart the suggestion of preventing chaos rather than curing it may lead to problems the rush to conduct the election on Monday April 4 may cause.
9. Please remain fully assured of our continued respect for your office and the commission you head.
Yours trulyFor: CONGRESS FOR PROGRESSIVE CHANGE (CPC)
Prince Tony Momoh
NATIONAL CHAIRMANOn Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 3:43 PM, Mobolaji ALUKO <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:2nd April, 2011
The Chairman,
Independent National Electoral Commission
Zambezi Street,
Maitama,Abuja.
POSTPONEMENT OF NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS: ACN'S STAND
The Action Congress of Nigeria, (ACN) pursuant to our resolve as promoters of democratic norms and practices, received with shock, the news of the postponement of the National Assembly elections, after all the assurances that INEC was ready for the elections every inch of the way. We however wish to posit as follows:
a. Given the huge logistical challenges as observed by every Party, we commend Prof Attahiru Jega for the courage to postpone the elections, which if allowed to continue in the circumstances would have again exposed INEC's unreadiness for the exercise effectively, added to this, his rare ability to apologise for such lapses.
b. Given the sheer lack of capacity exhibited by the Operations Directorate, we are convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that INEC cannot between now and Monday, 4th April, 2011, account for all ballot papers already utilised, retrieve all sensitive materials in circulation and in the hands of various electoral officials nationwide. Added to this, is the fact that the same Operations and IT departments have not been able to avail political parties who are critical stakeholders in this exercise, the updated register of voters,
c. Taking cognisance of the fact that it is impossible for especially opposition parties to re-finance their agents sent to remote parts of the country and other logistical requirements given the extremely short time frame,
d. Bearing in mind the huge losses suffered by every sector of the national economy and especially ordinary Nigerians who eke out their living by the day, owing to the shutting down of all businesses,
e. Seeking to avoid voter fatique and allow for proper management of the elections,
The ACN condemns in strong terms the neglect and calculated attempt by the internal bureaucracy in INEC but especially the Operations Directorate in subverting the process thereby causing the nation monumental losses and undermining the integrity of the entire exercise.
Sir, this is our position and we believe shifting each of the elections by one week is still within the confines of the electoral act. Please accept our kind prayer for God's guidance in your responsibility.
Yours Sincerely,
Senator Lawal Shuaibu
National Secretary
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ACN rejects Monday as new date for National Assembly poll
The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has rejected Monday as the new date for the National Assembly election, which was postponed today (Saturday) due to the late arrival of the result collation sheet.In a statement issued in Ilorin on Saturday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party also described the bungling of the National Assembly poll as a national calamity and an avoidable embarrassment, which will further expose Nigeria to ridicule in the comity of nations.It suggested that the National Assembly election should be held on Saturday, April 9th, while the Presidential election can be postponed to the middle of the upper week, and the Governorship/State Assembly election can still be held on April 16th.''We reject this unilateral decision by INEC to fix the postponed National Assembly election for Monday. The new date does not give us enough time to re-mobilize our agents and put in place the necessary logistics.The only day between Saturday and Monday is Sunday, when banks do not open. Where does he expect us to get the funds to mobilize our agents for Monday's election? Only the PDP can quickly mobilise such funds. So that date cannot stand, unless Jega is working against the opposition.''Also, the delay in the arrival and distribution of the result sheet is not the only thing that was wrong with the election today (Saturday). There are many lapses on the part of INEC which cannot be rectified between now and Monday.For example, a voter at a polling booth in Lagos (Aboyade Cole/Manuwa polling booth) said the Labour Party was not on the ballot that was used there. This is an invitation to post-electoral litigation.''In Kwara, the number of ballot papers supplied was largely inadequate, meaning that many voters would have been disenfranchised if the election had not been postponed. In several states, registered voters could not find their names onthe register. In fact, at polling booth 004 in Amuwo Odofin in Lagos, less than 50 of the 720 who registered there found their names. It is therefore necessary for INEC to rectify these problems!'' ACN said.The party said Prof. Jega should take the reports from his field officials to know the exact problems with today's election, with a view to rectifying them, instead of rushing to fix a new, unrealistic date for the postponed election.It also advised the INEC Chairman to look inwards in identifying the reason for the bungling of the National Assembly poll, reminding him of ACN's consistent warning that his integrity alone will not translate to credible polls, and that the commission still harbours the rump of Maurice Iwu's mafia that ensured no election was successful during his (Iwu's) tenure.ACN said while it appreciates Prof. Jega's candour in admitting INEC's shortcoming and took responsibility for it, that does not mitigate the fact that Nigerians have been embarrassed and their enthusiasm dampened by the commission's mis-step.''For instance, if the materials were supposed to have arrived on Thursday and they did not arrive, as Jega said, shouldn't INEC have saved Nigerians this huge embarrassment and wastage of scarce resources by postponing the poll, instead of cancelling it after it has started? '' the party queried.
Alhaji Lai MohammedNational Publicity SecretaryAction Congress of Nigeria
Ilorin, April 2nd 2011__________________________________________________________________________________._,_._
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