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As counting continues and Nigerians anxiously await the outcome of their just concluded presidential elections, the Head of the ECOWAS observation mission, former President of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma said the election was marred with irregularities.
Speaking on Monday, Koroma said that the late start of voting beyond the 8:30 a.m. opening time due to the late arrival of polling officials, voting materials, and in some cases, the delivery of wrong materials at polling stations across the country were some of the issues noted by observers in the field.
As a result, people continued casting ballots on Sunday even though the general election, which included choosing a new national legislature, should have ended on Saturday.
The former president of Sierra Leone added, however, that major political parties did have representatives at most polling stations.
“The All People’s Congress, the All Progressive Party, the APC, the People’s Democratic Party, the Labour Party, and the New Nigeria People’s Party were present in most of the polling stations as a visible absence of most of the other party agents in the rest of these stations,” he said.
He further stated that some presidential candidates through their parties and supporters have raised concerns about irregularities during polling day.
The Head of the ECOWAS observer’s mission concluded by urging presidential candidates to respect the outcome of the polls even with the irregularities issues reported by field observers as the winner is to be announced days after polling day.
