1999, 2003 election results, data missing – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said on Thursday the results and data of the 1999 and 2003 general elections were missing.

The INEC National Commissioner on Election and Party Monitoring, Prof. Anthonia Okosi-Simbina, disclosed this at a one-day workshop on the proposed compendium of the results for the 2007, 2011 and 2015 general elections, organised by the Nigerian Institute Of Social And Economic Research (NISER) in Ibadan, Oyo State.

However, Okosi-Simbina said researchers did not find it difficult to trace the 2019 general election results which were already online.

The INEC official said the programme focused on preparing a compendium for the aforementioned elections results because data for the 1999 and 2003 elections results were not available.

Okosi-Simbina said: “We want people to get the statistics of the voters; the women, the men, artisans and rural dwellers.

“If political parties follow the demographics, they will be able to know their targets during political campaigns. It will also help the government in the provision of essential things. It will also help INEC too.

“It was difficult to get that of 1999 and 2003; much of the data were not made available because it was scattered in various offices. But the 2019 data was not like that because we had a better way of storing them and it’s online.

“The recommendation is that the results of elections should be released in a more organized manner.”

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A National Commissioner for INEC and Chairman, Board of The Electoral Institute, Prince Solomon Soyebi, who was also at the forum, said the Commission had taken a second look at the results of the elections.

He said the Commission was trying its best to ensure that the results of all the elections from 1999 were available online, adding that lessons learnt in those elections would help in future polls.

Soyebi said: “Results of the 2019 general election is on our website. It is separated based on sex, rural setting, and other demographics. From the 2019 general election, we can now show the state with the highest votes.”

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