Okwe Obi, Abuja

Election observer group, Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC), has vowed to expose and shame those saddled with different positions in the 2019 polls but ended up truncating the exercise. 

WARDC, in conjunction with Actionaid, Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), and Strengthening Citizens Resistance Against Prevalence of Corruption (SCRAP-C), lamented that their insidious act soiled the image of the country before the international community.

WARDC’s Executive Director, Dr Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, who said this at a meeting on vote-buying and political corruption, in Abuja, proposed a public hearing so that Nigerians can dissect and chart a new course.

She said: “Electoral officers were held hostage, hijacked and even shot. I don’t think in our electoral history we have got to that level where electoral officers cannot sit and declare results without the interference of political thugs, security officers.

“If we had reports, how come professors who were the returning officers are not coming out to talk about it. We need a public hearing so that people can talk about what happened so that it won’t be repeated.

“After the audit, we are going to make our recommendations to the institutions involved; we are going to name names; shame those who are supposed to be shamed.

“If this goes with the kind of impunity we see in Nigeria, we will never get out of this kind of electoral system. Sadly people won elections with less than 25% of the voters.”

Akiyode-Afolabi, who revealed that the outcome reflected 2007 plebiscites where similar incidents happened, argued that voters’ inducement had hindered the country’s democratic growth.

“The outcome of the 2019 election is a big retrogression from where we are coming from. It took us back to 2007 polls. It is so bad because INEC, at a point became helpless.”

Meanwhile, the Chairman, Election Observation Platform for Transition Monitoring Group, Professor Adigun Agbaje, has lamented that those who were expected to change the shady practice were benefiting from it, but expressed hope that the recommendations would transform the system.