Presidential Election: Process Free And Fair Until Counting – WACSOF
The West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF), a regional network drawn from 15 West African States, has said the February 25th presidential elections was initially free and fair till counting and uploading began.
The National Executive Director of the forum, Dr Sanwo Olatunji-David stated this on Tuesday in Abuja while reviewing the just-concluded presidential and National Assembly polls.
He blamed the technical issues on inadequate training of polling unit agents on the effective use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
READ ALSO: Presidential Elections Went Well NBA Hails INEC
He charged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to address glitches ahead of the scheduled March 11th governorship and State Assembly polls.
The chairman stated that INEC should expand data capacity as well as attend to all technical requirements relating to the upload of results to its portal from polling units.
Olatunji-David said, “Our observation across the polling units monitored identified the following: Late arrival of INEC staff and election materials made the process drag late into the night and brought about frustration on the part of the voters, and thus a fertile ground for electoral malpractices; shortage of election consumables such as ink pads delayed voting in some polling units visited; some of the polling unit agents were seeing the BVAS for the second time after their hurriedly packaged training and couldn’t operate the device efficiently, this created hitches and voter frustration.
READ ALSO: Banky W Breaks Silence After Losing Election To LP’s Thaddeus Attah (Video)
“Election was free, fair and credible up to the point of counting. The situation, however, changed after counting and uploading the result was made practically impossible for presidential results. Above is at variance to the provisions of INEC regulations for this election and the Electoral Act”.
Trending video of the day:
Photo credit: Getty