Nigeria opposition wants voting analysis

News 24 (South Africa)

23 April 2011

Nigeria opposition wants voting analysis

    

Lagos - Nigeria's main opposition party on Saturday called for a forensic analysis of the ballots cast in about a third of the states in last weekend's presidential poll, alleging they were inflated in favour of the incumbent.

The Congress for Progressive Change of former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, which has rejected the presidential election outcome, said it wanted the electoral agency to carry out a biometric examination of all ballot papers in 11 of the country's 36 states.

"We will... present our case before competent law courts to compel INEC to subject all the ballot papers from at least 11 states... to forensic analysis," Buhari's running mate Tunde Bakare told journalists.

"The voting was fine but a lot of things, malpractices happened at the collation centres," he said.

The CPC wants the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to annul results from the 11 states in southern parts of the country.