By Linus Aleke
The African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD), has scored the conduct of the presidential and national assembly elections by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), very low.
The Centre itemized myriad of avoidable challenges that almost marred the conduct of the ongoing electoral process.
Mr. Monday Osasah, Executive Director, Centre LSD, said this in an interim report of the Centre’s observation of the presidential and national assembly elections, held on February 25th 2023.
He said, some of these challenges observed during the elections include, late arrival of Ad-hoc staff and materials due to challenging logistics.
Others he disclosed are, “Congestions at some Polling Units resulting in accreditation and voting till very late into the night with attendant social and security implications. The inability of the ad-hoc staff to upload result into the BVAS as stipulated in the Electoral Act. The non upload of results on the excuse of network glitches fuelled tension and suspicion of possible rigging of the exercise at the polling units. Some voters presenting themselves at the wrong polling units, and inadequate security personnel in some of the polling units across the country”.
The interim report however, recommended the following remedies to the identified challenges.
This, Mr. Osasah said include, INEC improving on its logistics and ensure personnel and materials arrive early in the March 11, 2023 election.
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The Centre noted that INEC should as a matter of urgency provide dedicated MIFI for each polling unit to ease the upload of results into the BVAS in the subsequent elections.
The report further recommended that INEC should work closely with security agencies and increase the number of security personnel at the polling environment.
“INEC should collaborate more with the National Orientation Agency (NOA) and ensure a sustained civic and voter education exercise across the country especially on the need for voters to confirm their Polling Units before election day. Channels of communication between INEC and Ad hoc staff must be improved for next phase of the election,” the interim report also recommended.
While commending INEC for significantly creating new polling units across the nation, the first in 25 years, the Centre concluded that it should further review the congestions experienced in certain polling units by deploying more BVAS machines and personnel to such Polling Units to ease voters waiting time to vote.
