She
stressed that simultaneous accreditation and voting introduced by the
electoral body, in no small measure, contributed to the relative success
of the elections.
The Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA), an election observer
group, has noted with concern, few cases where Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) officials connived with politicians to
sabotage the electoral process in Saturday’s presidential and National
Assembly elections.
The group in its preliminary report also noted with concern the
reported killings in parts of the country, while urging security
agencies to ensure culprits are brought to book.
Its Acting Executive Director, Ms. Faith Nwadishi, stated this at a
press conference Sunday in Abuja, where she said that though there were
some challenges with the conduct of the election in some states of the
federation, the frameworks and mechanisms put in place by the Commission
ensured the polls were credible.
The group added that despite initial fears of concern, following
the initial postponement of the election, INEC performed credibly well,
while also commending the quick response of the INEC Chairman for
ordering the arrest of erring officials who connived with politicians to
sabotage the electoral process.
She stressed that simultaneous accreditation and voting introduced
by the electoral body, in no small measure, contributed to the relative
success of the elections.
Nwadishi pointed out that reports from observers deployed by CTA
across the country indicated that the elections were still marred by
challenges ranging from late arrival of materials and personnel,
malfunctioning card readers, shortage of sensitive and non-sensitive
materials, pockets of violence in some states resulting in killings and
disruption of voting, missing names of registered voters from the
electoral register, poor management of RACS on the polling day.
She stated, “We also note with concern, few cases of INEC
officials conniving with politicians to sabotage the electoral process.
For example in parts of Imo state, INEC officials connived with
politicians to withhold electoral materials thereby preventing the
elections from holding. We commend the quick response of the INEC
Chairman in arresting the situation and ordering the arrest of the
erring officials.”
She noted that in most cases where card readers malfunctioned, the
electoral body was able to respond in a timely manner to either fix the
problem or replace such malfunctioning card readers.
Nwadishi stressed, “While INEC generally displayed dedication,
we observed that some of them were still grappling with a basic
understanding of their roles as well as the capacity to operate the card
readers.
“There were widespread reports of late arrival of materials and
personnel across the country even though the RACs were activated a
night before. From our observation, this was due to poor deployment of
materials and personnel to various places.
“The perchance for the use of political thugs, vote buying, the
predilection for compromising the security agencies have all combined
to pose serious threats to the political process by the political
class/political parties.”
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