Adedayo Akinwale examines the war chest at INEC’s disposal and its performance in organising and conducting the 2019 elections
In the run-up to the elections, INEC chairman had assured delegations of the European Union , United Kingdom and the United States , African Union , ECOWAS and various observers mission that the commission would surpass its 2015 achievement. The electoral expenditure started with N1.5 billion in 1999 to N29 billion in 2002, N45.5 billion in 2006, N111 billion in 2010 and down to N87.8 billion in 2014, while a total of N236.7 was spent on the 2019 elections.
He also declared 29,364,209 voters were accredited, while the total number of valid votes was 27,324,583; and the total number of votes rejected was 1,289,607; while total votes cast was 28,614,190. But despite the protest by the PDP, Yakubu said, “In relations to the issues raised, there are specifically three of them that the commission wishes to make some preliminary statement on. We said preliminary statement, because during collation we haven’t had all the time in the world to look at these issues in-depth.
Also, the issue of figures discrepancies resonated last week when Presidential candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his party filed their case before the Presidential Election Tribunal, where he claimed that data from the server of INEC revealed that his votes were reduced in 31 states and the Federal Capital Territory .
A breakdown of the 174-page document showed the electronic collation of results state by state as of February 25.
On the backdrop of their averment that the use of these techs e.g electronic collations, were not backed by the electoral acts is very worrisome