The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has been scored high in its overall performance in the Anambra gubernatorial election.
Mr Nnamdi Okpara, the Country Director of the Mater Dei Communication, a Non-Governmental Organisation, NGO, which focuses on moral rebranding and advocacy, said the group scored INEC 80 per cent.
He spoke in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Wednesday, while assessing the electoral process before and during the poll.
According to him, the apparatuses and other mechanism put in place by INEC made the election credible and fair.
“As a group, we are very satisfied with the level of conduct of the Anambra election by INEC and recommend that it adopts the same apparatuses in future elections in Nigeria.
“We rate the electoral body 80 per cent, in spite of the pockets of card reader malfunctioning at the beginning, which was later resolved.
“The coordination by INEC is second-to-none and we are happy that the country’s democracy is growing with significant improvement in the electoral process.
“We also laud security measures put in place, which also contributed in making the election a huge success,” Okpara said.
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He said the group was bothered by the trend where local government elections were usually swept by the ruling political parties in the states.
“Democracy had gone beyond the stage, where a ruling party sweeps all the positions because it is in power,” he said.
He said that democracy allows for genuine and viable opposition, hence the ruling party should endeavour to give the opposition a chance in election.
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“This is the beauty of democracy and where opposition is silenced, checks and balances become difficult,” Okpara said.
He underscored the need to increase voter education in the country to encourage mass participation in the electoral process by the people.
