The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has admitted that the large number of political parties that participated in the 2019 general elections created a lot of logistics problem.<\/p>\n
Malam Mohammed Haruna, the National Commissioner in charge of Kwara, Kogi and Nasarawa States, said this on Saturday in Ilorin while speaking with journalists.<\/p>\n
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that INEC organised a workshop in Kwara to review the 2019 general elections.<\/p>\n
According to the National Commissioner, there were 799 litigations from the 2019 general elections across the country.<\/p>\n
He said that Jigawa had no petition from the election, Kwara had only three petitions and that Imo topped the list with 77 petitions.<\/p>\n
Haruna said that there were over 800 million pre-election cases across the country that arose from political parties\u2019 primary elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you can see that with these kinds of problems we had, there is really a need to look at the number of political parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really need to do something about the 91 political parties, not just the quantity which generally speaking the public have begun to complain that 93 political parties are on the high side,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He noted that 76 political parties contested for the Presidential election, adding that this was the source of the serious logistics problem that the commission had.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe underestimated the kind of logistical problem that implied the size of the ballot papers, result sheets and so on.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time these materials started arriving, we realise that it was a huge logistical problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are lucky, we had the Nigerian Air Force to help with the movement of the materials, they have always been helping us,\u201d Haruna said.<\/p>\n
The commissioner said the Electoral Act and the Constitution have to be reviewed to curb the increasing number of political parties.<\/p>\n
According to him, the Constitution and the Electoral Act made it easy for anybody to register a political party once the person has an office in Abuja and its executive officers that reflected the Federal Character.<\/p>\n
Haruna said that the workshop was to review the 2019 general elections to see what went wrong, and how to make sure that similar mistakes are not repeated in future elections.<\/p>\n
He said the review would help the commission to do better during off-season elections coming up in Bayelsa and Kogi later in the year.In his remark, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Kwara, Malam Garba Attahiru-Madami, said the workshop was mainly to review the activities of the last election and proffer solutions to identified lapses.<\/p>\n
Madami, who was represented by the Administrative Secretary, Mr Martins Borris Chiroma, advised participants to contribute meaningfully to the sessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to receive inputs from you that will help INEC to overcome challenges identified during the last general elections,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has admitted that the large number of political parties that participated in the 2019 general elections created a lot of logistics problem. Malam Mohammed Haruna, the National Commissioner in charge of Kwara, Kogi and Nasarawa States, said this on Saturday in Ilorin while speaking with journalists. The News Agency […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":10912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[502,251,709,74],"class_list":["post-11539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-imo-state","tag-inec","tag-jigwa","tag-kwara-state"],"yoast_head":"\n