The Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in Kano State, Abdulsamad Abdu Zango, has said electoral rigging is largely perpetrated at polling units by political actors, rather than by the commission.
Mr Zango stated this on Thursday at a one-day stakeholders’ engagement on “Strengthening Electoral Engagement for Peaceful 2027 General Elections in Nigeria,” held in Kano.
The event was organised by Mambayya House, Aminu Kano Centre for Democratic Studies, Bayero University, Kano, in partnership with Al-Habibiyyah Islamic Society, Abuja.
Delivering a keynote address, which was represented by Sulaiman Alkali, INEC Director in Kano, the REC said political actors were often responsible for manipulating election results at the polling-unit level.
He said INEC had no power to alter election results once they had left the polling units.
“Most of this rigging is done at the polling-unit level. That is the problem we are having.
“If a particular candidate is very popular in a particular area, whether you like it or not, there might be attempts to rig the votes of that particular polling unit.
“I think the party agents have to do more in safeguarding those votes. INEC does not even have staff to engage in rigging. All the electoral staff are ad hoc. They are people engaged to do the election work,” he said.
Mr Zango therefore urged political parties and their agents to take greater responsibility for protecting votes cast at polling units, rather than blaming INEC for electoral malpractice.
