INEC declares presidential election results on Monday

The Independent National Electoral Commission has said that
despite the extension of the Saturday’s elections till Sunday in
some parts of the country, the complete results of the
presidential poll will be declared on Monday.
INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, who gave this assurance
on Sunday, however, said as of Sunday evening, results of the
polls had only been completely collated in two states, one of
which was Ekiti.
He maintained that the commission would declare the results
of the presidential election within 48 hours after the conduct
of the polls as it did in 2011.
He said this while addressing journalists in company with
some of the INEC commissioners on the update on the
conduct of the elections so far at the International Conference
Centre, Abuja, venue of the National Collation Centre of the
elections.
He said, “Some people assume that when I said 48 hours, it
starts from the morning the elections commenced. It is 48
hours after elections have ended, like yesterday.
“You start counting 48 hours from yesterday (Saturday), when
substantial majority of the polling units ended elections.”
He expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the Saturday’s
polls, which he said held in a substantial number of polling
units across the country, including the troubled North-East
region, where he said Internally Displaced Persons were able
to vote in three states of Adamawa, Yobe and Borno.
“We are pleased that the elections went on smoothly in a
substantial number of Polling Units across the country,
including the North East where the commission was also able
to conduct voting for Internally Displaced Persons in the three
states of Adamawa, Yobe and Borno,” he said.
He also debunked speculation that the resort to manual
accreditation in some polling units, where the card reader
machines failed, could undermine the credibility of the
election.
According to him, out of more that 150,000 card readers used
for the conduct of the polls on Saturday, only 300 of them
failed, representing only about 0.25 per cent of the total
number of machines.
“It is also gratifying to not that the card readers worked well
in the majority of polling units, even though there were areas
where difficulties experienced necessitated additional
guidelines to allow for manual accreditation of voters, as
announced yesterday (Saturday),” he said.
He said the resort to manual accreditation occurred in some
polling units in nine states which are Osun, Kebbi, Ekiti,
Adamawa, Borno, Jigawa, Anambra, Akwa Ibom and Ebonyi.”