The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it
recorded over 1,689 court cases as a result of the 2019 general
election.
Mohammed Haruna, INEC National Electoral Commissioner in charge of
Niger, Kogi, and Nasarawa states, said this on Thursday in Lafia during
the state level post-election review retreat.
Haruna said more than 890 of the cases were pre-election matters
arising from the conduct of political party primary elections, while 799
were election petitions at the various tribunals across the country.
According to him, the pre-election cases indicate that political
parties need to put their acts together in order to deepen the nation’s
democratic process. He also said that the cases before the election
petitions tribunals showed that much still needed to be done to improve
on the electoral process.
“We are here to review what we did for this year’s general
election with a view to improving on our subsequent outing. You will
agree with me that any document is work in progress, you can never get
it perfectly,” Haruna said.
Haruna cited the unprecedented number of political parties that
participated in the 2019 general election as one of the challenges that
the commission faced during the conduct of the polls.
In his remarks, Uthman Ajidagba, Resident Electoral Commissioner in
the state, said that 26 cases were recorded in the state from the 2019
general election.