Yiaga Africa, Election Monitoring Group has urged voters in Saturday September 21st governorship election in Edo State to resist attempts at vote-buying and selling; intimidation and manipulation before, during and after the poll.
Chairperson of the 2024 Edo election Mission, Aisha Abdullahi, gave the advice at pre-election statement made available to journalists on Thursday in Benin City where it urged security agencies to nip the menace in the bid irrespective of whose ox is gored.
Abdullahi, expressed concern that the persistent governance failures and economic hardship, a deep-seated lack of confidence in the electoral process could deter voter turnout from either voting or exercising their civic duties on election Day.
The data driven-Non Governmental Organization, lamented decline in voter turnout in past governorship elections in Edo State from 32 per cent in 2016 in to 27 per cent in 2020, marking 8 per cent decrease, coupled with the persistent governance failures could have impact in the forthcoming election.
The citizen-led movement under the Watching The Vote (WTV) Working Group, called on transport Unions not to exploit the hike in the fuel prices to default in their contractual agreement with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Yiaga Africa further tasked INEC to demonstrate its capacity to conduct a transparent, credible and efficient election by managing logistics effectively to enable early commencement of voting across all polling units during the election.
Security agencies should ensure that all deployed personnel strictly adhere to the code of conduct for election security, according to Yiaga Africa, acting professionally without bias, apprehending electoral offenders and ensure that accredited election-bound Observers and Media practitioners have the right to free movement on election Day.
In addition, Yiaga Africa condemned personal attacks, character assassination, hate speech and blame-game politics during the three horse race campaigns by All Progressives Congress (APC) Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP).
It also identified eight Local government Areas as potential hotspots for violence, which include, but not limited to Ikpoba-Okha, Oredo, Egor, Ovia South West and Ovia North East, Esan South East, Etsako West and Etsako East Local Government Areas as volatile security environment at the poll.
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