The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, a frontline Non-Government Organization in its bid to ensure the sanctity of the Nigerian’s Electoral Processes has once again applauded the efforts of the Stakeholders towards the success of the Edo State Gubernatorial Election.
Addressing a press conference on Friday in Benin City, the Alternate Chair for the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, Mrs. Esther Uzoma revealed that “the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room has trained and deployed a total of 300 Observers for the Edo State Governorship Election scheduled for Saturday, 19th September 2020. Esther Uzoma, stated at the press conference that, “the Situation Room has received assurances from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Nigerian Police Force that they are fully prepared for the elections. Uzoma also noted the assurances from the INEC that all the logistics and deployments issues have been properly controlled and handled by them with the commitment and promise from the Police Authorities to keep the Security Situation under it’s check”.
Uzoma also pointed out at the briefing that the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room would focus its findings on how fast the distributions and deployments of election personnel’s are done, the timeliness of the opening of the polling units, the level of adherence and compliance to COVID – 19 protocols on Election Day and the INEC’s guidelines for conducting elections during the pandemic, the level of knowledge of the election procedures by the INEC ad-hoc staff voting procedures particularly the effectiveness of the Smart Card Readers deployed by INEC as well as the transparent Collation process.
The Situation Room commended INEC for the use of the Smart Card Readers and the introduction of the INEC Result Viewing portal (IRV) as an additional layer of ensuring accountability and transparency during the election. It equally urged INEC to adhere to its promises of only making use of the newly created portal to take care of uploading results already announced at the polling units using the Z-pads.
Situation Room also called on the INEC to ensure the opening of the said portal to public view and should not accept results where there are electoral violence or malpractices. They also commended INEC for coming up with new security features on its sensitive materials with the hope of reducing any interference with the ballot papers and results sheets.
In the same development, the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room has frowned at some level of hostility and unprofessional conducts of some policemen towards accredited media agents and observers during the distribution of election materials held at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Office in Benin on Wednesday, the 16th, September 2020. A clarion call was therefore made to the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force to call its men to order and enjoined them to be neutral and professional in their conducts.
The Situation Room also advised the Nigerian Police document the evidence of violence, infractions and their perpetrators and share this information with the INEC, in order to bring offenders to book.
The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room reminded and appealed to the political parties, political stakeholders and gladiators to
abide by the Peace accord they signed. The 14 political parties participating in the Governorship election were counselled to equally ensure they conduct themselves well and help to guarantee a peaceful atmosphere before, during and after the Governorship election in Edo State.
Packaged By Emmanuel Adeniran
