International observers, who monitored Wednesday Edo State
governorship election have expressed reservations about the conduct of
the election, pointing out that they were not denied entry into the
centre vote collation centre and that security operatives at the polling
units looked the other way while politicians and their agents induced
voters with money.
Prof Ahmed Ansari, head of the African
Union Observer Team, asked the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) to improve on the functionality of the card readers as he noted
that the machine did not work in some polling units.
He said
along with other international observer groups such as the American
Observer team, the British Council and others from the Netherlands and
Scotland, the full reports of their impression of the election would be
submitted to the INEC and other important election stakeholders.
He
said, “The turnout was quite impressive, but there were problems here
and there. Another challenge was understaffing. We saw situation whereby
only one staff was in a polling unit. That was not good enough.
There
were reports of inducement. Every party complained about inducement
which to me mean that all of them were guilty. The electorate are not
supposed to sell their consciences. To the politicians, it shouldn’t be
about money.
He further stated that “as the head of
an international observer team, we were not allowed to go to the
collation centres at a particular time. That is something we need to
complain about. I asked who gave the instruction; who gave the order? It
couldn’t be INEC.
“It could be, as they call it, order from
above? But the security men told me that ‘sir, this is the order given
to us.’ In every situation, one person is allowed to be there. Even when
we delegated Victor (his assistant) to go in, he was not allowed to go
into the hall.
He said, “He (Victor) was allowed to come within
the compound, but was not inside the nucleus, where the whole the
exercise took place, adding that “we should be there; we should get the
result sheet. We should have a copy but we don’t have copies for now.”
On
the rescheduling of collation of results, Prof Ansari said, “it could
be for security reasons based on advice, but I didn’t know why they had
to stop and leave it for a particular time. Of course, there was no call
for it.”
When asked what security operatives could have
done upon noticing that money was exchanging hands at the polling
units, he said “that depends on the order they gave them.”
Also
speaking, Christian Victor from the African Union for Economic, Social
and Cultural Council, said many of the things observed in the field on
Wednesday were not the kind of things that should happen in an election.
He
said,
“One of them is that everywhere we visited was filled with money
flying around. Some people were fighting some voters for not voting the
political parties they were paid for. It was very disappointing that
this kind of thing still happens in the Nigeria’s political system.
“I
watched the security agencies and it was clear they understood that
monies were flying but for reasons best known to them they did not stop
it. There were cases of young men, who looked like thugs, driving around
during the election.“They were never stopped by security
agencies. That is wrong where there is a restriction of movement. I also
saw wealthy people moving around in SUVs during the election.
I have been part of many elections and I have never seen a situation
whereby observers and journalists are not allowed into collation
centres.”
A local observer, Sadoh Danladi Sunday, stated that it
was shocking that the results announced by the INEC did not tally with
those his group got from the field.