NBA wants INEC to use electronic voting machine for future polls

The Election Working Group of the Nigeria Bar Association has described the Ekiti State governorship election as generally free and fair.
But the group urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to “move towards the use of Electronic Voting Machines, EVM, for future elections, in order to ensure more credibility as it has indicated that it has the capacity to use such process, which it used to collate results in the collating centers”.
The EWG said with the success recorded in the poll, it was an indication that there is hope for the nation if the INEC could maintain the transparent manner it conducted the Ekiti State poll.
The EWG stated this in its report on the Saturday election in Ekiti State.
It was signed by the Chairman of the group, Dafe Akpedeye, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
The group deployed a total of 36 observers, made up of NBA in all its branches in Ekiti State.
The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Ayo Fayose, won the election with 203,090 votes, while Governor Kayode Fayemi of the All Progressives Congress polled 120,433 votes and Labour Party’s candidate, Hon. Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, got 18,135.
The group added: “INEC must be commended for the successful conduct of the Ekiti State Gubernatorial Elections.
“The elections were generally free and fair. INEC rose up to the challenge and if they keep this up there is hope for the future.”
It stated that party agents conducted themselves well and worked with the INEC officials and security agents in each polling unit visited.
The group commended the security presence at the polling units, but observed that in most units where its observers visited in the state, there was a minimum of three security agents comprising the police and civil defence, in each polling units.
“The security personnel’s conducted themselves in a civil and orderly manner. There were also military patrols and checkpoints in all the area councils,” it stressed.
On accreditation for the election, the EWG said the exercise began in most polling units at the scheduled time of 8am while it was behind schedule in a few places.
It added: “In a few others, the exercise commenced about five minutes behind schedule. In Ward 10, Gbonyin Local Government Area accreditation started at 9:00am in Polling Unit 015. There was no proper set up at Polling Unit 013, Ward 10, Gbonyin Local Government Area and accreditation commenced at 9:30 am.”
The EWG however regretted that INEC officials were not very adequate in most of the polling units visited though the ad-hoc staff drawn from the National Youth Service Corps discharged their duties conscientiously.
It commended the Commission for improving in the area of logistics compared to last November governorship election in Anambra State.
It urged the electoral body and political parties to engage in civic education, adding: “We noted that there were instances of elderly and illiterate persons going to cast votes without a clue as to who was being voted for and for what purpose.”