BEVERLY HILLS, September 21, (THEWILL) – The Nigerian Bar Association, NBA has commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for not interfering with the popular choice of Edo people in the governorship election.
The NBA President, Olumide Akpata had appointed a team led by the NBA 1st Vice President, John Aikpokpo-Martins as members of the NBA Observer Group for the Edo State Gubernatorial election.
In an interim report submitted to the NBA President, the group highlighted all the processes during the election. The report captured the arrival of election officials, provision of materials, voting pattern, covid19 compliance, voters’ demographics, agents of political parties, electorate/voters turnout, card readers, security, and vote-buying/inducement.
The group expressed disappointment on the observance of COVID19 protocols. It says INEC officials could have done better by organising voters in this instance. “We strongly hold the opinion that COVID19 protocols compliance at the just concluded Edo election was abysmal and it is rated 25%. Protocols like washing of hands and social distancing were not observed at all.”, the report said.
On voter turnout, the report says they were more of older people of age 40 and above than youths. It added about 70% of voters during the election were women.
While the report noticed a general satisfaction on the conduct of the election by agents of political parties, it however noticed that card readers malfunctioned minimally. “The device worked well in most polling units and we observed that there is substantial improvement in the deployment of card readers. In one or two units where the card readers broke down, the officials informed us that they had requested for a back up card reader.”
The report commended the deployment of adequate security in the state and their conduct. There was no voter intimidation but observed that Policemen were either not professionally trained about election protocol or they were not informed that observers are part of the election process. “We recommend that INEC should improve in this area of enlightenment engagement with security forces”, the report says.
“The Edo state governorship election was generally peaceful. We have not been able to confirm any death in any polling unit during the election. The election officials did not interfere with the voters in almost 100% of the units we covered. Our observation ended at about 4pm on the day of election and we have deliberately excluded the final process of result collation since we did not cover that aspect. In a subsequent report, we shall elaborate on additional recommendations for INEC during future elections”, the report concluded.
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