The Transition Monitoring Group on Friday called for intensified voter education to address the ‘alarming’ rate of void votes, saying it was becoming a recurring decimal in Nigeria’s elections.
TMG’s Chairperson, Dr. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, made the call in a statement issued in reaction to the outcome of the Edo State governorship election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had on Thursday declared Godwin Obaseki of the All Progressives Congress winner of the election.
Obaseki polled 319,483 to defeat his closest rival, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the Peoples Democratic Party, who scored 253,173 votes.
The INEC Returning Officer, Prof. Kayode Soremekun, said there were 1,900,223 registered voters, while 662,039 of them were accredited, with 613,244 voters casting their votes in the election.
He said 582,299 of the votes cast were recorded as valid, while 30,945 were rejected votes.
In the TMG statement, Akiyode-Afolabi said there was the need for election stakeholders, Civil Society Organisations, political parties and INEC to take the issue of voter education serious in the future elections.
The chairperson said the TMG deployed 100 observers to witness the elections and they also came out with some findings.
Akiode-Afolabi said: “The group deployed 100 citizen observers to Edo State to observe the election. Observers witnessed the entire election process from setup of the polling unit through the announcement and posting of the official results.
“Our observers reported that the accreditation, voting and counting processes were orderly and peaceful throughout.
“We commend INEC for the integrity of the Edo polls and outcome; its commitment to Edo election will shore up citizens confidence in the ability and integrity of the commission to successfully conduct future polls.
“INEC should ensure that similar tempo is sustained in other subsequent elections by ensuring early training and retraining of personnel as well as early deployment of personnel and materials respectively.”
Akiyode-Afolabi called for a more effective synergy between INEC and security agencies to avert the new ugly narrative that led to the postponement of the Edo State election and called for a better collaboration in Ondo State and subsequent elections.
She also advised that prompt communication of changes in plan by INEC be
considered very important to forestall wastage of resources and unnecessary voter apathy.
She also stated: “The security agencies should judiciously engage all forums and channels of communication with INEC and other electoral stakeholders to prevent unnecessary overlaps with the mandate of INEC.
“We seize this opportunity to stress the need for further electoral reform, especially the need for creation of Electoral Offences Commission to curb electoral violence.”
Akiyode-Afolabi urged political parties to adopt more innovative and decent ways of canvassing votes ahead of elections, rather than embarking on cash inducement of voters as experienced in a pocket of polling units during the election.
She called for calm and urged parties, candidates and their supporters who may wish to challenge the outcome of the election to seek redress through appropriate channels and not to take laws into their hands.