{"id":196030,"date":"2026-02-24T10:55:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T09:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame"},"modified":"2026-02-24T12:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:01:15","slug":"fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame","title":{"rendered":"FCT Polls National Commissioner Surprised by Blame"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Muhammed Haruna, has expressed surprise that the Commission is being blamed for the low voter turnout in the recently concluded FCT Area Councils polls.<\/p>\n<p>Haruna made the remark on Monday while fielding questions in an interview on Trust TV.<\/p>\n<p>He was reacting to the FCT Area Council election, which witnessed low voter turnout across the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u201cWhile voter turnout is a critical concern, attributing blame solely to INEC is misdirected. INEC\u2019s primary role is civic education, informing citizens on how to vote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m surprised that INEC is blamed for low turnout. Although we encourage participation, the responsibility for mobilizing voters ultimately rests with political parties.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese parties possess extensive memberships, often numbering in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. Our mandate prohibits us from endorsing specific candidates or parties.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are, however, committed to our part in encouraging turnout, as exemplified by the recent election, where we undertook comprehensive efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Muhammed Haruna, has expressed surprise that the Commission is being blamed for the low voter turnout in the recently concluded FCT Area Councils polls. Haruna made the remark on Monday while fielding questions in an interview on Trust TV. He was reacting to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":196029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,16],"tags":[254],"class_list":["post-196030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-parties","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>FCT Polls National Commissioner Surprised by Blame - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Muhammed Haruna, has expressed surprise th ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FCT Polls National Commissioner Surprised by Blame\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Muhammed Haruna, has expressed surprise th ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-24T09:55:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-24T11:01:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/02\/sm_1771930834.468847.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"685\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"FCT Polls National Commissioner Surprised by Blame\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-24T09:55:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-24T11:01:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame\"},\"wordCount\":185,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/02\/sm_1771930834.468847.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Parties\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/fct-polls-national-commissioner-surprised-by-blame\",\"name\":\"FCT Polls National Commissioner Surprised by Blame - 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