INEC, Security Chiefs deny Gov. Wada's claims

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and a security chief have denied claims of inefficacy and security threats in the Saturday’s Kogi governorship election.

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According to Nick Dazang, the Deputy Director of Publicity of INEC, the claims of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Gov. Idris Wada that the card reads were not working and that there were inadequate incidence forms at polling units did not correspond with real situation.

In his words, "I don’t think what he said tallies with what we have seen and what we have monitored. The card reader was much successful; the incidences where we have that failure were very few."

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Dazang added that in all the cases where there was card reader failure, there were sufficient incident forms.

In the same vein, the Deputy Commander General, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Nnamdi Nwinyi, maintained that the election was peaceful and could not confirm Gov. Wada’s allegations.

Nwinyi stated that security operatives were professional in their operation, while urging Kogi residents to avoid violence after the announcement of the result.

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“Did the governor mention any area? I do not know where he got his information from but on our own we have not had any issues and if he has mentioned the areas, security would have been beefed up in such areas to stop anything that will be an embarrassment to INEC," he said.

Speaking further, Nwinyi said, “Nigerians should be getting more mature now; the awareness is high. Voter apathy has been removed. The politicians and National Orientation Agency still have more work to do in trying to educate Nigerians on issues of public conduct during elections. That is the only way we can get it right; when people have confidence in the results of INEC. But so far, I will give a pass mark to what I have seen on the field.”