NewsNigeriaPoliticsGuber/HoA Elections: NGO warns INEC not to betray trust of Nigerians

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A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA), has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to keep faith with its promise by ensuring a better outing than the 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections.

Faith Nwadishi, the Executive Director of CTA, while speaking at a press conference in Asaba, Delta State, said the need for improvement in the previous election was imperative to avoid further post elections litigation.

The  NGO charges security agencies across board to ensure safety of citizens on Saturday governorship and House of Assembly elections to prevent the high records of electoral violence that occurred during the last presidential and National Assembly elections.

CTA urged INEC officials to ensure that materials get to all the polling units on time to avoid unnecessary issues that could disrupt the election process.

The organisation declared that the level of electoral violence and voter suppression noticed in the last election left a sore taste in the electoral bud.

She said, “It was appalling to see thugs having free reign, destroying voting materials and harassing citizens at polling units”,

The Executive Director of CTA explained that voter turnout was noticeably high though but voter suppression implicated the final outcome for the reported number of voters. “We consider Saturday’s elections very important which all citizens should be taken very seriously”.

She also called on citizens to shun vote buying and trading, but instead come out in their numbers to exercise their franchise.

While advising citizens to conduct themselves with utmost decorum for their votes to count, Nwadishi said that the electorate should not allow themselves to be subverted by the negative use of money to influence votes including the criminal purchases of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) by politicians.

“We recognise clearly that the symbolic presence of law enforcement agents at polling units on election days has not deterred vote buying. It is, therefore, important that a more result-oriented method like covert operations be adopted to curb this menace.

The Executive Director however, commended INEC for sanctioning some of its errant election officials for misconduct in the last elections; but stressed that it is not enough, as they expect that more electoral officers and adhoc staff should be sanctioned for the sake of integrity.

By Uzoamaka Ikezue (Staff Reporter)

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