We have over 1,689 litigations, says INEC – TheNigerialawyer

The Independent National Electoral Commission has said it has
recorded over 1,689 court cases arising from the 2019 general
election.

Mallam Mohammed Haruna, INEC National Electoral Commissioner in
charge of Niger, Kogi and Nasarawa States disclosed this on
Thursday in Lafia during the state level post-election review
retreat.

Haruna explained that 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 indicated that
political parties needed to get their acts together in order to
deepen the nation’s democratic process.

He said, “We are here to review what we did in 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.

He expressed optimism that from the review of the 2019 general
election with inputs from the various stakeholders, subsequent
elections would be better than the previous as noticeable pitfalls
would be addressed.

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, Dr Uthman Ajidagba, Resident Electoral
Commissioner in the state said that 26 cases were recorded in the
state from the 2019 general election.

Ajidagba said two were pre-election litigations while 24 cases
were at the election petitions tribunals.

He said, “That we have this small number means that there was a
level of satisfaction but some people just want to prove points by
going to the tribunal,” he said.

(NAN)

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