By Chimezie Godfrey
#TrackNigeria – The National Electoral Commissioner, Festus Okoye has said that no political party, candidate, civil society organization, and security agency can absolve itself of blames in relation to some of the challenges that was witnessed during the 2019 elections.
He made this assertion Thursday in Abuja during the official launch of a report on the militarization of Nigeria electoral process, organized by Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) in collaboration with Transparency International (TI-DSP).
Okoye declared to all stakeholders present at the event that there is enough reason to go round considering the reports of domestic and international election observers.
He said: “No political party, no candidate, no civil society Organization, no major organization and no security agency can take the moral high ground in relation to its performance during the 2019 elections and then absolve itself of some of the blames in relation to some of the challenges that we had in the election.
“If you look at the reports of the domestic and international election observers, you will see that there is enough blame to go round.
“We have taken our own blame and we are also engaging our own internal evaluation. We encourage the political parties to also engage in their own evaluation and review of their own conducts during the 2019 general elections.”
The Hon. National Commissioner said that presently, there are 809 pre-election matters and 800 post-election matters in court arising from the 2019 elections.
He added that the 809 pre-election matters are products of the type of party primary elections that were organized by the political parties.
He encouraged the political parties to look at their own processes and procedures and also propose reforms that will lead to internal democracy within the political parties.
“If you also study some of the cases that have gone to electoral petition tribunals, you will see that most of these cases (arose) from the conduct of the political parties.
“Places where they snatch ballot papers, places where they put gun on the head of the collation officers and force them to declare the results that are not commensurate with the will of the people.
“And if you also look at some other aspect, you will also see where the security agencies also had their own blames.
“So, let every political party, security agency, CSOs, and the media also look at their own processes and their own internal evaluation.
“So that at the end of the day all these things will be put in a basket, we harvest those that need legislative reform and we go to the national assembly,” he stressed.
On the issue of electronic voting, he said there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the electronic voting, but from their perspective that it is possible that what Nigerians actually want is duality of both electronic and manual voting.
He said that there are areas that are not covered by any major network, and that they must factor these people who are not covered by any major network when considering electronic voting.
He said that INEC as an electoral management body works with existing laws, but gave the assurance that any moment the national assembly amends the law and says that Nigeria should go towards electronic voting, they will immediately comply.
