Abuja – The Nigeria Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) also known as Situation Room has commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other stakeholders for the peaceful conduct of Saturday’s governorship election in Ondo State.
The Situation Room is made up of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working in support of credible and transparent elections in Nigeria
The situation room, in a statement it issued on Sunday in Akure, praised the professionalism displayed by INEC during voting at the polling units (PUs).
. “There was early distribution and deployment of personnel and materials which led to the commencement of voting at the scheduled time of 8 a.m., across the state,’’ the CSOs said.
The Situation Room said that INEC took into cognizance the peculiar terrain of the riverine areas of the state.
“The continued application of the simultaneous accreditation and voting procedure helped in ensuring the early completion of the polls.’’
The CSOs, however, raised concern on the inability of the Smart Card Readers (SCRs) to authenticate fingerprints in a large number of instances and described the development as a sore point in election management.
“We also observed that some of the SCRs were not fully powered and lacked back-up where it became necessary.’’
It , however, commended INEC on what it described as “significant improvement’’ in the placement of the voting cubicle and ballot boxes.
It said that though there was an improvement in guaranteeing the secrecy of votes, “there was still concern that the general arrangement of some polling units with inadequate floor spaces compromised secret voting.
It also commended the improvements in INEC’s collation of results.
“There were, however, challenges with receiving collated results from local governments that were distant from Akure, the state collation headquarters.
“This created delay in the announcement of results from all the local government areas, there is need for further work to improve collation time in future elections.’’
The situation room also lauded political parties for adhering to the peace accord they entered into before the elections.
“However, incidents of vote-buying by political parties continued to persist in the election.
“Reports of parties paying voters to induce support were received and posed a threat to free elections in Nigeria,’’ it said.
The Situation Room also commended the security agencies on the adequate deployment of personnel, especially, to flashpoints.
“Security personnel generally carried out their duties in a civil and professional manner, although, there were isolated incidents of misconduct by some of them.’’
It also commended the electorate in Ondo State for their peaceful conduct during the election.
