By Gom Mirian
The West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF) has charged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to improve on the foreseeable technical glitches “shortcomings ” ahead of the governorship and state assembly polls.
The National Executive Director, Dr. Sanwo Olatunji-David, gave the charge on Tuesday while speaking on the just concluded presidential and National Assembly elections held on February 25 in Abuja.
He also urged INEC to fine-tune and expand data capacity and all other necessary technical requirements relating to election results upload to the INEC portal as stipulated in the election guidelines.
Olatunji-David, who rued the poor knowledge of polling unit agents to operate the Biomodal Voter Accreditation system (BVAS) machines, said it is unfortunate that the Presidential Elections were used as an experiment in the country
According to Olatunji-David, “Our observation across the polling units monitored identified the following: Late arrival of INEC staff and election materials made the process drag late into the night and brought about frustration on the part of the voters and thus a fertile ground for electoral malpractices.
“Shortages of election consumables such as ink pads delayed voting in some polling units visited.
“Some of the polling unit’s agents were seeing the BVAS for the second time after their hurriedly packaged training and couldn’t operate the device efficiently, this created hitches and Voter frustration.
“Election was free, fair, and credible up to the point of counting.
“The situation however changed after counting and uploading the result was made practically impossible for Presidential results.
“Above is at variance to the provisions of INEC regulations for this election and the electoral act.
“Now that INEC did not consider it expedient to address complaints relating to election results before announcing the winner.”
The group further commended the aggrieved parties for seeking redress in court rather than resorting to violence.
Olatunji-David further noted that, “As a Thematic Group, our position is that the aggrieved Parties did the right thing by approaching the Presidential election Tribunal to address their grievances rather than heating the system.
“Nigeria cannot afford another crisis now with the tension all over the country caused by the Naira crunch and the vexation emanating from the Feb 25th elections.
“We believe that approaching the court will add value by enriching and deepening our democratic values.”
