YIAGA AFRICA, a Civil Society Organisation, on Sunday called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to review its training procedures for its ad hoc staff.
Dr Hussaini Abdu, Chairman, YIAGA AFRICA Watching the Vote, made the call at a news conference on its preliminary statement on the Feb. 23 elections in Abuja.
According to Abdu, the call became imperative because some counting procedures in particular were not followed in all polling units.
He said that transparency of the process and public confidence were undermined significantly in 19 per cent of polling units.
He therefore, called on INEC to make polling unit results available to the general public in a timely manner to rebuild confidence in the official results.
“YIAGA AFRICA also recommends that INEC review its training procedures for ad hoc staff in view of failures to consistently adhere to counting, such as counting the number of unused ballot papers, counting the number of spoilt presidential ballot papers.
“Others are, counting of the number of counterfoils for the presidential ballot papers and sorting the presidential ballot papers into piles, with a pile for each party and another pile for rejected ballots.’’
Abdu said that in spite of the one week postponement, INEC still experienced significant logistics challenges that resulted in late opening of polling units across the country.
He urged INEC to undertake a comprehensive post-election review of the 2019 electoral timeline.
This, he said, was to identify gaps in its preparations and to clearly communicate with the public plans to address the structural or other issues that have resulted in three successive national elections marred by logistics challenges.
He said the group also condemned reports of political party agents attempting to influence voters or INEC officials in 11 per cent of polling units.
Abdu said that critical incidents were also received of the two major party agents or supporters attacking observers, polling staff or voters; snatching ballot boxes; and destroying election materials.
He said that if Nigerian democracy was to move forward, party leaders should ensure that they encouraged and model peaceful engagement with the electoral process.
The body also urged their supporters to act in accordance with the electoral guidelines and the law.
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He said that YIAGA AFRICA noted voter apathy as the turnout for the 2019 elections fell below the bar set in 2015.
This, he said, reflected the growing sense of disconnect between the Nigerian people and the political elite.
Abdu called on all major political parties, regardless of the outcome of the polls, to review their platforms and communication strategies to better align with their policies and actions with the interests of their constituencies.
He encouraged parties to deepen their internal party democracy through more transparent and open primaries and to make efforts to attract and promote candidates who better reflected Nigeria’s diverse population.
He also called on INEC and security to ensure proper security for citizens, especially the polling and collation officials especially as results collation progressed.
Abdu said that overall, the Feb. election was characterised by many of the same shortcomings that marred previous national elections in Nigeria.
“These were not the elections Nigerians wanted; they were not the elections Nigerians expected; and, most importantly, they were not the elections Nigerians deserved.
“Our election commission must improve its capacity to deliver credible elections and our political parties must play according to the rules. Failure to do so could fundamentally threaten our democracy,” he said.
Abdu said that YIAGA AFRICA employed the parallel vote tabulation (PVT) methodology for the Feb. 23 elections and deployed 3,030 observers to a representative statistical sample of 1,515 polling units, 46 observers to 23 voting points, and 822 mobile observers located in all 774 LGAs.
He said this strategy enabled YIAGA AFRICA to provide timely and accurate information on accreditation, voting, and counting as well as to independently verify the official results of the presidential election as announced by INEC.
He added immediately after INEC announces the official results for the election, YIAGA AFRICA would hold a conference to issue its statement publicising its independent estimates of the election results.
If the announced results reflect the ballots cast at polling units, then we will confirm the outcome.
He said this would show if the announced results have been manipulated and do not match the results posted at polling units, then YIAGA AFRICA will expose this.(NAN)
