INEC not against photographs at polling centres – Jega

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attaahiru Jega, has said that the commission is not against voters taking photographs at polling centres during elections. Jega stated this at a meeting with election observers in Abuja on Sunday. At the meeting, which held at the INEC headquarters, the issue of people staying back at the voting centres on election days and taking photographs was also discussed. Jega reportedly told the gathering that the commission was not against it and had indeed encouraged people to do so. The meeting was requested by the monitors under the aegis of Nigeria Election Situation Room. At the meeting, Jega was said to have explained the need to postpone the elections by one week. Representative of Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, Clement Nwankwo, who confirmed the meeting in an email said Jega informed them that vendors who were to deliver election materials for North-Central, South-South and South-East failed to deliver the materials on time. He said, “The vendor failed to deliver materials made for the North-Central, South-South and South-East. The vendor was supposed to have delivered materials to Abuja on Friday, April 1, 2011 but kept postponing the delivery time and finally delivered the materials in Lagos at 9.00 a.m of April 2, 2011, which already compromised the exercise given that they then had to be moved to Abuja before being dispersed to the various states. “In the second place, there were problems with the accreditors in the field, all of whom had been trained but some of who never turned up. Again, at some polling stations there were more people than anticipated, over 1,000 in some cases. “Finally, and most importantly of all, was the widespread absence of results’ sheets, which rendered the whole exercise redundant.” He said Jega explained that his initial thought was that the postponed National Assembly elections should have held on Monday, in order not to leave too much time between the initial exercise and the re-scheduled one given that sensitive material was already in the field but that this turned out not to be feasible. By Olusola Fabiyi and John Alechenu, Abuja Courtesy Of: Punch