By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
Situation Room, a frontline Civil Society Organisation (CSO) has commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the outcome of the the just concluded Ekiti State Governorship Election which was won by the All Progressives Congress (APC), Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji.
But it also frowned at some of the infractions that nearly marred the peaceful conduct of the election which includes vote buying, malfunctioning of the Bi-modal Voting Accreditation System (BVAS) and overcrowded Polling Units (PU).
Situation Room which gave its Interim Statement on 2022 Ekiti State Governorship Election during a Press Conference in Ado Ekiti on Sunday morning said preliminary reports indicate that the election went on smoothly on Saturday.
Addressing the media, Spokesman and Co-Convener, Situation Room, James Ugochukwu said the election was peaceful with voters playing a key part in the comportment at the various PUs.
Said he: “Situation Room notes that INEC’s strategy of voters’ redistribution failed to address the problem of over concentration of voters in some polling units.
“A glaring example was the situation at Surajudeen School, Ado Dallimore (Ward 9), Ado Ekiti LGA, which had about five thousand registered voters shared between just two polling units”.
Speaking further, he said: “Some of the voters complained that their request for transfer of registration to their preferred polling units was not approved before this exercise”.
“Several of the Polling Units were sited in private residences and compounds in Ekiti State contrary to claims by INEC that the Commission had moved polling units to public spaces during its “Expansion of Voters Access to Polling Units Exercise” in 2021. We hope that INEC will properly address this lingering issue going into the 2023 General Elections”.
Situation Room insists that reports
received from field observers and reports from its observers and network partners indicated that there were marked improvement in logistics and commencement of polls.
“Situation Room notes an appreciable improvement in INEC’s logistics and election administration, especially with the early arrival of election officials and materials at the polling units, leading to early opening of polls. This is a welcome improvement from what was observed in both the Anambra State Governorship Election 2021 and FCT Area Councils Elections 2022” .
On the use of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), he said: “Our observations indicate the BVAS was functional in at least 76% of the voting locations. However, there have been many reports of delays and malfunctioning BVAS machines in some voting units especially those with many registered voters”.
“Examples of the locations where the machines malfunctioned are PU 002 Igbaletere by Mechanic Workshop, Ward 6 Ado Okeyinmi, Ado-Ekiti LGA where the Machine was going on and off intermittently, PU 007 LA Primary School Oke Afin. Otun Ward III and PUO18 Igogo Ward II both in Moba LGA, where the BVAS failed, and PU 014, Ward 1 Okemesi, Ekiti West LGA, amongst others”.
Meanwhile, on Electronic Transmission of polling unit results to INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV Portal), Situation Room observed that INEC’s IReV portal went live on time, with 45% of the polling unit results already uploaded as at 5:00pm on election day. By 9:00pm, the upload was at 98% with results from 10 of the 16 LGAs fully uploaded. This is a marked improvement from the FCT Area Councils’ Elections in February 2022.
