Contrary to the pre-election narrative, the Center for Transparency Advocacy (CTA) has praised the Ekiti State governorship election as an improvement on the country’s democratic process.
Speaking about the preliminary results of Saturday’s election in Ado Ekiti, CTA Executive Secretary Faith Nwadishi said that reports from observers dispatched to the state’s sixteen local government areas showed that the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BIVAS) had reduced tension during the poll.
“BIVAS performance has been a huge improvement compared to previous experience,” the speaker stated. By all measures, things are getting better over time, and our democracy will benefit from that. We may state that our BIVAS performance has improved.
“The BIVAS is the reason for the calm and harmony we witnessed during this election. Identity theft by voters has decreased as a result of it. The ability to select someone’s voter card was formerly available, but using Incident Form has helped to eliminate that.
“BIVAS has also helped with uploading of results. Now you declare results at polling units and it is offloaded. So, if we have that kind of technology, what we should do is to encourage it.” Nwadishi who commended all stakeholders, however, said despite the impressive turnout, voters were heavily induced, saying the phenomenon of vote buying is fast becoming a major feature of the nation’s democracy manifested during this election. She said: “Our observers reported parties paying as much as N7,000 for votes while in some instances packs of Sphagetti and Semovita were shared to voters.
“It is heartwarming to observe that some culpable party agents were arrested by the agents of EFCC. INEC, the security agencies and other stakeholders need to work out measures to effectively address this ugly phenomenon.” Still speaking on the BIVAS, Nwadishi said reports from the field indicated that the BIVAS performed very well in the Ekiti elections with voter accreditation taking between two to three minutes on the average. “Compared to other states where BIVAS malfunctioned, CTA noted with satisfaction the performance of INEC officials during the election. In most of the polling units covered by our observers, polling officials exhibited professionalism and knowledge of their duties.”
“Many of the officials arrived early in most of the polling units, with many of the polling units opening around 8.30am,” she said, complimenting INEC for the early arrival of polling officials in the majority of the polling units while voter accreditation and voting started on time in the majority of the polling units observed.
“This shows that INEC has made improvements to its electoral logistics arrangements. We hope this development will be consolidated upon and carried into the 2023 general elections.
According to reports from our field observers, in the majority of the polling places they witnessed, voter registration and voting got underway on schedule. Although several polling units experienced technical difficulties, our observers’ report showed that almost 80% of polling units opened on time.
“Our observers’ reports on the punctuality and demeanor of security agents suggest that, in general, the agents arrived at the polling places on time and behaved professionally, particularly when it came to upholding law and order.
“We also noticed that the different security services were cooperating and networking with one another. There were, nevertheless, isolated grievances over the well-being of the security personnel on duty.
“From our observers’ report, voter turnout was generally impressive,” the speaker stated in reference to the turnout of voters. For this reason, we applaud the tremendous participation of the Ekiti electorate.
“The CTA commends the good people of Ekiti state, security agencies, and INEC for their contributions to the growth and development of our democracy.”
