2011 Nigeria National Elections
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polling stations was found to be placid and orderly more than 90 percent of the time. The worst
problems encountered inside the polling station were: overcrowding (eight percent); missing election
materials (eight percent—mainly lack of voting booths for privacy); and intimidation of voters,
polling agents or election officials (six percent). In one instance, a polling station did not have any
indelible ink to mark voters and prevent multiple voting, and observers complained that the ink used
was not always of sufficient quality.
In more than 90 percent of the polling stations visited, the accreditation process went exactly as
prescribed, the exception being—in about a third of the polling stations—voters did not wait within
the polling zone as instructed once they had been accredited. With respect to the voting phase of
the process, which was supposed to start at 12:30 p.m., procedures were followed in more than 90
percent of the stations visited. IRI did witness certain, occasional irregularities: in 20 percent of
polling stations, IRI observed a person (sometimes more than one) being denied the right to vote
because his or her name could not be found in the voter register, or names being found after much
difficulty, or in some cases, people being allowed to vote even though their names did not appear in
the register. Irregularities observed in four percent of the polling stations included: allowing more
than one person in the voting booth at a time; same person "assisting" numerous voters; bystanders
inappropriately attempting to influence voters; one or more cases of underage voting. IRI's
observers in Enugu were the only ones to report ballot box stuffing. All in all, IRI observed some
type of procedural problem during the voting phase in about one out of four polling stations,
though not all problems reported were consequential to the process, or pervasive on a nationwide
scale.
On a positive note, the transparency of the elections was high compared to 2007. IRI's observers
did not record a single instance in which they were prevented from gaining access to a polling
station, nor were they prevented from viewing any part of the voting process. (One of IRI's teams
did experience a problem during the vote counting phase, however, as police or military officials at a
ward collation center in Kogi challenged their ability to observe the process. It appears that it may
have been an isolated case of misunderstanding and the observers involved were not sure whether
or not it was done to conceal a manipulation effort).
All short-term observers were debriefed between Saturday night on presidential Election Day and
Sunday night, April 17, the day after the elections. (By the end of the day on Sunday, all short-term
teams had returned to Abuja for debriefing). With respect to the polling stations that IRI observers
visited but were not able to formally document, the information reported back during the
debriefings generally coincided with the more formally documented findings described above,
further strengthening the conclusions drawn from the paper observer questionnaire.
On Monday, April 18, after debriefing all of IRI's short-term delegates and discussing the
information received, IRI released its preliminary statement on the elections (see Appendix C). The
April 16 presidential election was an improvement from previous elections. The elections
demonstrated Nigerian citizens' commitment to democracy, as well as INEC's ability to organize
and implement an administratively sound, generally peaceful, broadly participatory and transparent
electoral process.
Despite administrative successes, however, the process made clear the need for further reform of
Nigeria's political party system. Absent such reform, Nigerian democracy remains vulnerable to the
