The African Union (AU) Election Observation Mission (EOM) has expressed concern over the delay in the commencement of voting in the February 25 general election in Nigeria.

Development Diaries reports that the AU mission also faulted the unbalanced allocation of voters per polling unit, adding that the disparity in the spread of the electorate strained electoral officials.

It called for a review of the ‘electoral logistics operations strategy to ensure timely deployment of electoral material and personnel and sufficient capacity building’.

As for the European Union (EU), it said lack of transparency and operational failures marred the presidential and National Assembly elections.

The EU, in its report on the elections, noted that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) lacked efficient planning and transparency during critical stages of the electoral process.

The report also noted that the fuel scarcity and cash crunch drastically affected INEC’s operational capacity, and that insecurity and pockets of attacks in some local government areas hindered preparations.

‘INEC lacked efficient planning and transparency during critical stages of the electoral process, while on election day, trust in INEC was seen to further reduce due to delayed polling processes and information gap related to much-anticipated access to results on its Results Viewing Portal (IRev)’.

The electoral umpire introduced the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) and IReV technology to the electoral process to ensure transparency in the election process.

BVAS is a device introduced by INEC that allows for the accreditation of voters through biometrics capturing, uploading of polling results and other functions.

Development Diaries, therefore, ask that INEC reviews its electoral logistics operation strategy and its voting time extension to anticipate greater participation as recommended by the AU mission.

We also call on the commission to strictly adhere to the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022.