As Nigerians await the outcome of last Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections, the electoral umpire (INEC), deserves commendation for conducting free and fair elections so far. Though, the elections witnessed delays in voting and pockets of violence in some states, they can be adjudged peaceful.
Youths of voting age and other voters came out en masse to cast their votes.
President Muhammadu Buhari should take credit for signing the electoral bill into law, which paved the way for the deployment of technology in the conduct of elections in the country.
With the BVAS, voters were accredited with relative ease, leading to the conduct of free, fair and transparent polls. Also worthy of mention is the naira redesign policy which curtailed vote buying. There was a departure from the excessive use of cash by money-bag politicians. Infact, the elections did not witness the use of money as obtained in the previous polls.
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The political culture has changed, leading to a change in voting patterns. With this development, one can confidently say, our over two decades of democracy has improved significantly.
INEC has started announcing the results of the presidential and National Assembly elections. It is expected that the winners would be magnanimous in victory, while the losers should accept the outcome of the results in good faith. In any election, there must be winners and losers.
Desperate politicians should refrain from making unguarded utterances capable of igniting crises. If they have genuine case of irregularity arising from the election, they should take them to the election tribunals, which will soon be inaugurated to entertain election matters.
This is the best option to seek for redress instead of recruiting thugs to foment trouble or mayhem.
It has also been reported that INEC’s server was slow in uploading the election results. The hitches should be hurriedly addressed in order to provide Nigerians with accurate and reliable results. INEC should fix this problem before the March 11, gubernatorial elections.
There is no gainsaying that the incidences of rigging that marred previous elections in the past have been minimised if not completely eliminated. INEC has become an independent and unbiased institution.
Through reforms and innovations, the commission operates like its contemporaries in developed countries. Nigerians should pray that INEC will maintain the momentum in the subsequent elections.
Ibrahim Mustapha Pambegua, Kaduna State
