Lagos LG poll: Declaration of results not our responsibility, says LASIEC

The Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) says it will on Tuesday present certificates of return to winners of the local government election.

Elections into 57 seats in local governments (LGs) and local council development areas (LCDAs) took place on Saturday across 13,323 polling units.

Speaking on Monday, Tope Ojo, LASIEC spokesman, said the commission’s “next responsibility now is to issue the certificates of returns based on what they (operation and logistics committee) sent to us from each local government”.

Ojo said it is the responsibility of the returning officers (ROs) to announce results.

“The chairman has said that she doesn’t want to be involved in the declaration of results because it is not her responsibility,” he said.

“We have ROs in each of those local government who announced results. We don’t have anything with results.

“We don’t have much responsibility when it comes to the declaration of election results. The law is so clear.

“After those results have been declared, they (returning officers) forward it to O and L committee.

“The department that is in charge of operation will collate statistics of winners to write certificates of results. They have sent all results here which are being tabulated.”

He said a comprehensive list of winners was being worked on, adding that he was equally expecting it for a speech.

“Those with statistics have to be put together, the number of candidates, the number of seats won by each of the political party and everything,” he said.

“I am still awaiting the results. The returning officers have been sending results to the committee. I don’t have any dealings with them.”

YIAGA Africa, a civil society organisation, had said there was partial or no official announcement of results at some collation centres during the exercise.

According to Cynthia Mbamalu, director of programs at YIAGA, the anomalies were recorded in Badagry, Eti-Osa, Ikorodu, Kosofe and Lagos Island LGAs.

Similar incidents were said to have been reported in Surulere and Shomolu LGAs, while in Kosofe, officials reportedly did not announce the total number of votes cast and no information was provided on the votes share per party.