INEC advised to cater for ‘less-accessible’ voting centres

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should devise improved strategies of dealing with the challenges posed by delays in the movement of electoral materials and personnel to less-accessible voting centres so as not to disenfranchise some voters, the Nigerian Press Council (NPC) has advised.

The advice was contained in a communiqué issued after a two-day  workshop on, “2011 General Elections: Expectations from the Media” organized by the NPC in collaboration with the International Republican Institute (IRI) which was held at Hamdala Hotel, Kaduna on March 22-23, 2011.

The communiqué signed by the NPC Executive Secretary Bayo Atoyebi, Dr. Emma Shehu (for resource persons) and Ilya Garba (for participants) also advised journalists to “avoid unauthorised announcement of results of elections or false extrapolation of results to avoid confusion or violence”.

The workshop also noted “that the availability of different versions of the amended Electoral Act 2010 and the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in circulation is confusing, and does not provide the accurate legal framework to guide elections”.

The communique said: “participants resolved that the media should be conscious of the responsibility vested on it by the constitution and do everything within its power to ensure it discharges this role effectively.”

The workshop which drew 118 participants mostly from the print and some electronic media in the northern states appraised the role of the media in the electioneering process and their operating environment.

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