Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, a coalition of over 70 organisations said the just concluded Anambra governorship election showed that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) needed to do more in election management.
Convener of the Situation Room, Ene Obi said this while reading the document co-signed by her, co-conveners Asmaú Joda and James Ugochukwu at a news conference in Abuja, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
According to him, Situation Room sent observers to monitor the Anambra election and the supplementary polls conducted in Ihiala and received reports from its field observers, partners and network in the course of the election.
“The administration of the Anambra governorship election appears to have suffered from severe logistical challenges.
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”Situation Room observed protracted delays in the opening of polls in most units as a result of late deployment of ad hoc staff.
“This issue reoccurred on a larger scale in the supplementary election held in Ihiala local government area and rather disappointing as it was expected that INEC would have been better prepared to deploy staff and materials early.
“At the onset of the election on Saturday November 6, 2021, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) posed challenges to the accreditation process in many voting locations, particularly failure to authenticate fingerprints and detect faces. This delayed the voting process.
“ In some instance where the batteries of the machines went flat, INEC’s technical team responded and rectified the situation when contacted.’’
Obi said that INEC’s administration of the election fell short of the expected standard, especially in the light of the fact that the omission had repeatedly assured of its readiness to conduct the election.
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She said that the introduction of the BVAS was a welcome development but election preparations needed to be improved upon to deliver efficiency in its use for the accreditation process.
She however, said that the performance of the BVAS improved significantly in the supplementary election conducted in Ihiala.
