The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room working in support of credible and transparent elections in Nigeria under the aegis of the ‘Situation Room’ on Sunday called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on the need to prosecute political actors and other suspected persons involved vote-buying during the just-concluded Ekiti State Governorship election.
The Group in its report issued by the Situation Room Convener, Ene Obi, commended the EFCC personnel for the arrests of suspected persons involved in votes buying.
“Situation Room observed that the issue of vote-buying and selling has continued unabatedly. This follows a familiar pattern of similar incidences across the country, and in particular, the 2014 Governorship election in Ekiti State. The description of this phenomenon as ‘Stomach Infrastructure’ in the 2014 election has evolved into a new nomenclature now described as ‘See and Buy’. The ability of Ekiti politicians to make light of such a grave violation of extant law is most unfortunate. Situation Room strongly condemns this blatant violation of the electoral law.”
While commending the deployment of Security officials from the Police, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), and Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), among others, the Situation Room however lamented that the “widespread presence of the Security personnel did not deter vote trading.
“Situation Room condemns the several videos that were shared on social media of young voters displaying the money collected for their votes. Situation Room commends EFCC for the arrests of suspected persons involved in vote-buying and hopes that these cases will lead to prosecution if the evidence is found to be germane.”
While describing the entire election as peaceful, the CSOs however observed that the turnout of voters was “at an average of almost 50% when compared to the number of PVCs collected.”
The Group further noted that “INEC’s strategy of voters’ redistribution failed to address the problem of over-concentration of voters in some polling units. A glaring example was the situation at Surajudeen School, Ado Dallimore (Ward 9), Ado Ekiti LGA, which had about 5,000 registered voters shared between just two polling units.
“Some of the voters complained that their request for transfer of registration to their preferred polling units was not approved before this exercise. Several of the polling units were sited in private residences and compounds in Ekiti State contrary to claims by INEC that the Commission had moved polling units to public spaces during its ‘Expansion of Voters Access to Polling Units Exercise’ in 2021. We hope that INEC will properly address this lingering issue going into the 2023 General Elections.
While applauding Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the appreciable improvement in its logistics and election administration, especially with the early arrival of election officials and materials at the polling units, leading to the early opening of polls, the Situation Room observed that the exercise was an improvement from both the Anambra State Governorship Election 2021 and FCT Area Councils Elections 2022.
On the Bimodal Voter Accreditation (BVAs), the Group observed that the “BVAS was functional in at least 76% of the voting locations. However, there have been many reports of delays and malfunctioning BVAS machines in some voting units especially those with many registered voters.
“Examples of the locations where the machines malfunctioned are PU 002 Igbaletere by Mechanic Workshop, Ward 6 Ado Okeyinmi, Ado-Ekiti LGA where the Machine was going on and off intermittently, PU 007 LA Primary School Oke Afin, Otun Ward III and PU018 Igogo Ward II both in Moba LGA where the BVAS failed, and PU 014, Ward I Okemesi, Ekiti West LGA, amongst others.
“Also, reports from field observers indicate that it takes at least 3 minutes to accredit a voter using the BVAS in 41% of the locations observed.
“Going by this, the BVAS would have successfully accredited 20 voters per hour on the average in the affected voting locations. Consequently, INEC will need to double its effort to improve the turnaround time of the BVAS by one minute per voter for a seamless process on election day. Furthermore, INEC’s distribution of the BVAS devices was not proportionate to the population of registered voters by polling unit.”
On its assessment of the electronic transmission of results, the Group observed that INEC’s IReV portal went live on time, with 45% of the polling unit results already uploaded as at 5:00 pm on election day. By 9:00 pm, the upload was at 98% with results from 10 of the 16 LGAs fully uploaded. This is a marked improvement from the FCT Area Councils’ Elections in February 2022.
On the collation of results, the CSOs applauded the Commission’s personnel efforts during the peaceful sorting and counting of votes at the polling units which lasted towards the evening on the election day and extended into the night.
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