Connected Development (CODE) has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure full transparency of the result management and collation process in the March 11 governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections.

Development Diaries reports that the civil society organisation (CSO) made the call in a statement highlighting its observation of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections.

CODE said it deployed about 20,000 election observers to monitor the process and conduct of the election across polling units in 774 local government areas (LGAs) of the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Generally, logistics challenges, overvoting, voter inducement, delay in uploading results from polling units to INEC portal, and violence were observed during the polls.

‘As Nigerians prepare to go to the polls for the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections on 11th March 2023, Connected Development and her partners appeal to INEC to ensure that the many challenges that marred the credibility of the presidential election should be handled’, CODE said in a statement.

INEC had promised Nigerians it would conduct free, fair and credible polls.

Specifically, the commission promised that there was no going back on the use of bimodal voter registration system (BVAS) for the 2023 elections.

However, that did not happen as the commission allowed the transmission of results manually, thereby raising concerns over election transparency.

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 had called on the commission to publish a comprehensive report of BVAS across the country alongside the results of the presidential elections.

Photo source: CODE