A civil society organization, Conscience for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution (CHRCR), has called on Kogi State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) to release statistics, facts and figures of the elections conducted on October 19 across the state without further delay.
In a statement signed by the Executive Director, Idris Miliki Abdul, CHRCR observed that the electoral process was conducted in peaceful and orderly manner, calling for its sustainance.
CHRCR, while acknowledging that voting took place in many polling units despite late arrival of materials and personnel in some part of the various local government, pointed a worrisome development where all the polling unit it visited failed to comply with guidelines providing for the display of voters’ register.
“While we noticed the peaceful campaign by political parties and distributions of election materials on the 18th October, 2024, we are, however, worried about the absence of electoral materials and officials, even the security personnel and political party agents in many polling units visited, particularly in Lokoja, the state capital.
“We also noticed that there was no complain by SIEC of not having the list of registered voters. So, what was responsible non-display of the list of registered voters at the polling units where prospective voters are expected to cast their votes?
“We also noticed there were no posters displaced at the various polling units as it the standard practice in elections in Nigeria.
“We are worried, despite the production and distributions of electoral materials by SIEC, deployment of personnel to various polling units as claimed by SIEC leadership, winners were declared without facts and figures at various local government and sent to the headquarters and was approved and released to the public through the media around 11:00pm on the day elections were conducted.
“It has become a norm or practice that SIEC will conduct elections without giving us figures of what each declared winners and other contestants scored at various polling units. This act is condemnable, and we condemn it totality. How does the SIEC arrive at the winners that it announced to the public?,” he querried.
CHRCR called on SIEC to diligently review last Saturday’s election and its mandate on electoral process, identify lessons learnt and make amendments where necessary.
