By Diana Omueza
Cleen Foundation Election Security Support Center (ESSC), has lauded the conduct of security personnel at the Saturday’s Osun governorship election.
Mrs Ruth Olofin, Acting Executive Director of the foundation said this on Saturday in Abuja at a news conference on the conduct of security personnel at the poll.
Olofin, represented by Mrs Chigozirim Okoro, the Programme Manager, said that thus far, the conduct of the security personnel deployed on election duty was applaudable.
“Cleen Foundation in line with its mandate to promote public safety and security, deployed 60 citizens observers across the 30 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state.
“It is to observe the conduct of security personnel on election duty at the Osun election.
“The ESSC observed, tracked, documented, escalated and followed up on security related development across the 30 LGAs were its observers were deployed.
“The ESSC observed that 85.1 per cent of security personnel arrived early at the polling units across the 30 LGAs,” she said.
According to him, security personnel in compliance with electoral laws were not armed, however, in some polling units, as PU.007, Ward 29/17/06/015 Adeniji, Ila LGA, armed security agents were present.
“Other security men on election duty maintained a reasonable distance from the polling units and patrolled the units periodically.
“68.1 per cent of the polling units had three or more security personnel, 93.6 per cent wore easily identifiable name tags, while 40.4 and 53.2 per cent of the security were approachable.
“And majority of the ESSC observers felt safe and secure at the polling units,” she said.
She lauded the personnel of the police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) for their good conduct and urged them to maintain professionalism till the end of the electoral process.
Olofin said the overall conduct of the security personnel was good, saying however, that there was need to look into cases of vote trading observed at the poll and ensured it was stamped out from the electoral process.
She lauded the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for its coordination and near absence of logistics challenges in the conduct of the election.
She also urged the commission to investigate and prosecute electoral offenders, especially those found to have been engaged in vote-trading.(NAN)
