Group commends INEC on Ekiti State Polls

ElectionBuzzNig’22

The Center for transparency advocacy group has commended the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC for it’s improved performance in Saturday’s Governorship election held in Ekiti State, Southwest Nigeria.

The group noted that INEC Officials and materials arrived early in most of the polling units, with many of the polling units opening around 8.30am.

The group said this was “an indication of improvement with regards to election logistics arrangement on the part of INEC. “We hope this improvement will be consolidated upon and carried into the 2023 general election.”

BVAS Performance
The group noted that compared to other states where the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS was deployed, reports from it’s officials on the field indicated that the BVAS performed very well in the Ekiti elections with voter accreditation taking between 2 to 3 minutes on the average.

It also observed with satisfaction the performance of INEC officials during the election.

The group said; “In most of the polling units covered by our observers, polling officials exhibited professionalism and knowledge of their duties.

“Security agents generally arrived promptly at the polling units and were professional in their conducts especially in the maintenance of law and order. We further observed that there was synergy and networking among the various security agencies.”

It also commended the Ekiti electorates for their enthusiastic and impressive turnout but noted regrettably that the phenomenon of vote buying was fast becoming a major feature of Nigeria’s democracy which manifested during this election.

It said; “Our observers reported parties paying as much as #7000 for votes while in some instances packs of Sphagetti and Semovita were shared to voters.

It is however heartwarming to observe that some culpable party agents were arrested by the agents of EFCC, INEC, and other Security Agencies.

The group appealed to all stakeholders in the electoral process to work out measures to effectively address this ugly phenomenon.

Mercy Chukwudiebere