#Nigeriadecides2019: Violence, disruptions mar collation exercise in Rivers

Widespread violence that disrupted the elections on Saturday in Rivers State is affecting the collation of results across the state.

Voting was disrupted in various places across the states amid incidents ranging from disputes over the location of polling units to armed attacks.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was forced to cancel the elections in two local government areas (LGAs), Bonny and Akuku Toru, due to violence.

In Akuku Toru LGA, the Nigerian Army said seven persons, including a soldier, lost their lives. The army, according to its spokesperson, Musa Sagir, lost one soldier while six suspected hoodlums who ambushed an army convoy in Abonnema were killed.

Election officials and materials could not leave the INEC office for polling units in Bonny LGA as a standoff ensued between partisans and security operatives.

Aside Bonny and Akuku Toru where elections did not hold LGA-wide, several wards and pollings across other LGAs were hit by violence and irregularities.

In Khana LGA, PREMIUM TIMES observed that materials and personnel left INEC office for polling units as late as minutes past 10 a.m. Even when the elections started belatedly, there were shootings and ballot box snatching.

In Okrika LGA, INEC said sensitive materials for one ward was “diverted”, therefore the decision to reschedule voting in the ward.

There were also incidents of card reader malfunction. PREMIUM TIMES observed the failure of card readers across polling units in Onne, Eleme LGA. Voters were manually accredited there as were in ward 7 of Port Harcourt City LGA.

As a result of these developments on Saturday, collation exercise is now taking a slow pace.

Across the state, collation is still at ward level, that is summation of results from polling units, several hours after voting ended.

In the Port Harcourt City LGA, as of 10:30 am on Sunday, results from pollings units were still being collated ward by ward at the Model Primary School, Elekahia.

“We may not leave here today,” one party agent said.

The collation exercise will still progress to the LGA level before returns are made in the National Assembly and presidential elections.

“No local government is ready,” confirmed Edwin Enabor, the spokesperson for INEC in the state.

Asked how many days to wait before the results are known statewide, Mr Enabor replied: “You can not say how many days. The exercise is at various stages across the state.”

Another source of disputes between the parties at various collation centres would be the failure of card readers.

This would mean discrepancies in the number of accreditted voters recorded by the card readers before failure and the number of those manually accredited.

At the collation centre in Port Harcourt, APC agents were disputing results from polling units in ward 7 where card readers failed. They said the PDP’s votes exceeded the accreditation recorded on the card readers.

They said polling staff helped the PDP to write fake results.

But the presiding officers denied that allegation.