The Presidential and National Assembly elections held on Saturday, February, 23, 2019 have come and gone.
Since then, the umpire in charge of the electoral processes, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been receiving positive and negative messages and reports in connection with the conduct of the exercise.
After the polls, President Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared winner by INEC.
The Returning Officer for the 2019 presidential elections, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu who made the declaration announced that Buhari polled 15,191,847 votes to defeat his closest rival, former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who had 11,262,978 votes.
The INEC chairmain said: “That Muhammadu Buhari, having scored the highest number of votes and satisfied the provision of the electoral act is hereby declared the winner of the presidential election.”
It is instructive to note here that the sincere disposition of decent minded Nigerians is that INEC needs to really seat up.
Cases of malpractices were reported in almost all the states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory.
In addition, most of the challenges mentioned when the polls were initially postponed were said to still be in existence. In some states, elections were held all night. Violent attacks on INEC officials, security operatives and voters were recorded too. A young man who reportedly went to vote was mauled to death in Ibadan. Rivers State recorded many deaths.
All in all, INEC really needs to structurally adjust the way it carries out its functions if the March 9, 2019 gubernatorial and Houses of Assembly elections will be adjudged as being better than those earlier held last month.
Nigerian electorate also needs to do his own bit by being law abiding and shunning those who urge him or her to sell votes. Everybody should go out to vote for the candidates they prefer.
Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
