The revised timetable
The National Assembly Elections will now hold on the Saturday the 9th of April, 2011 (15 Senators and 48 Representatives will not be elected on this day.)
The Presidential Elections will hold on Saturday the 16th of April, 2011
The Gubernatorial; State House of Assembly; those 15 Senatorial Districts and 48 Federal Constituencies will hold elections on Tuesday the 26th of April, 2011, the day after the Easter break.
The affected districts and constituencies
The presidential address
In the waking hours of Thursday, the 7th of April, 2011, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan addressed the nation [1] on the matter of the elections.
There is no doubt that both the Executive arms of government and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have been working flat out to restore a semblance of credibility and dare I say some reliability and trust in the much maligned and twice postponed elections.
The serious issues that were exposed on the 2nd of April presented a whole range of problems that INEC needed to find ways of resolving before disaster overwhelmed events leading Nigeria head-long into the abyss of a democratic black hole.
Deeds and needs
From names missing on voters registers to the lack of essential materials for the conduct of elections and then refilling the orders to furnish all Polling Units with all that was needed for free, fair and credible elections; INEC must have burnt the midnight oil many-a-night to prevent the untenable case of a mass postponement of elections again.
In the President’s address, he affirmed that the elections will hold as rescheduled, expressed confident in the ability and integrity of The INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, commiserated with Nigerians on their disappointment, laid emphasis on the independence of INEC, then urged all stakeholders to be fair whilst encouraging Nigerians to all come out with great enthusiasm to vote on Saturday, the 9th of April, 2011.
Where will voting hold?
We then had to wait to hear from Professor Attahiru Jega [2] about his game plan for the elections holding on Saturday along with the possible postponement of some to a later date to allow for the aforementioned logistical issues to be resolved.
15 out of 109 Senatorial Districts and 48 out of 260 Federal Constituencies will not hold elections on Saturday, in percentage terms for the ease of taking in such negative information that is 14% and 13% respectively; this spreads out over 25 out of 36 states – which is not really bad in the scheme of things.
The affected districts and constituencies [3] have been published by EiENigeria.Org with the attendant reasons why the postponement was necessary and the elections for the said constituencies will hold on Tuesday, the 26th of April, 2011 along with the Gubernatorial and State House Of Assembly elections.
Other information
For the NASS Elections you can find the aspirants for the House of Representatives and the aspirants for the Nigerian Senate by clicking on the links. #NigeriaDecides
The situation is redeemable but it requires all Nigerians participate most especially as witnesses, taking pictures, sending messages to monitoring locations, speaking to other fellow voters and disseminating the truthful state of affairs whilst doing everything to prevent and avoid violence or the usurping of their votes for electoral malpractice.
Reference Notes & URLs
Nigeria: #NigeriaDecides Election Review I
Nigeria: #NigeriaDecides Election Review II - New Election Dates
Nigeria: #NigeriaDecides Election Review III - Who votes on Saturday.
Nigeria: #NigeriaDecides Election Review IV - Part I to Voting
Nigeria: #NigeriaDecides Election Review IV - Part II - We can
To contact INEC
#NigeriaDecides: INEC incident reporting addresses: inec@yahoo.com, inec@gmail.com, inec@hotmail.com, inec@nigeria.org
Follow @inecnigeria, @EiENigeria, @reclaimnaija on Twitter if you are voting tomorrow. You will get useful alerts and information.
If you are tweeting about the elections, please use the hashtag# NigeriaDecides.
Send SMS Reports to INEC on these numbers 0816-666-2222, 0812-000-6622, 0809-666-2221.
Use these HOTLINES for incident reporting: 0707-0273-6781-9 (9 lines.)
General Election Information
Nigeria: A Primer on INEC Elections in April 2011
Nigeria: INEC Election Guidelines - Critical Information
Nigeria: Table of INEC Electoral Chain of Custody
Participate in monitoring
Reporting from your Polling Unit - ReVoDa | How it works
Submit a report as a monitor to ReclaimNaija – Click to Submit a Report
234Next.com Election Incident Reporting Site
Nigeria Elections Social Media Tracking Centre
Sources
[3] EiENigeria.Org | Districts & Constituencies Where National Elections Will Not Hold On 9th April 2011
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