Inec opens coalition centre and will begin announcing presidential election results tomorrow

INDEPENDENT National Electoral Commission (Inec) chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu has opened its national collation centre in Abuja and declared that the announcement of results for the presidential elections will begin tomorrow.

Yesterday, Nigeria went to the polls to elect a president and members of the National Assembly and results from some of the parliamentary elections have been released today. Tomorrow, Inec will begin announcing the results of the presidential election, with Professor Yakubu revealing  the rules for the collation of the results, pointing out that the presidential election results from each state would be presented by the state collation officers.

He said the officers would be accompanied by the resident electoral commissioner of the respective states. According to Professor Yakubu the commission was still awaiting results from all the states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Professor Yakubu said: “From today, the collation centre is hereby declared open until the final determination of the 2019 presidential election. During the course of proceedings, there may be interludes or adjournments but this will be announced by the returning officer as the need arises.

“We will reconvene at 11am on Monday, February 25, 2019 for the collation of results when the returning officer will then invite comments and observations from the polling agents. After counting, the returning officer completes form EC8B and announces the votes scored by each political party and thereafter invites the polling agents to endorse the form.”

He appealed to all stakeholders to keep by the rules set for the proceeding. Representatives of political parties at the centre were the All Progressives Congress, represented by Hameed Ali, the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service and the Peoples Democratic Party represented by Mr Usman Bugaje.

Others include the Young Progressives Party, the Allied Peoples Congress of Nigeria, the All Grand Alliance and the Justice Must Prevail Party. A total of 73 political parties participated in the presidential elections which was held in the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.