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An election monitoring group, the Situation Room, has blasted the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in the ongoing governorship election in Kogi State, Abubakar Audu, for openly displaying his ballot paper after thumb-printing.
Audu had shown off his ballot paper, which showed he voted for himself, to a cheering crowd at his polling unit but the Situation Room said the action is against the law.
Replying a tweet containing a photo of Audu displaying his thumb-printed ballot paper, the group wrote, “This is wrong… Voting should be secret. #KogiDecides.”
Although INEC, on its directives on “how to vote”, said “Your vote is secret because no one will see which candidate you choose.”, its electoral offences and penalties did not say anything about the voluntary display of ballot paper and the choice made.
INEC commenced collation of results from all the Local Governments in the state this morning. It had earlier warned the public to disregard results being shared on social media, saying that they are inaccurate.