2019 Elections: NGO deploys 147 observers to monitor vote buying

News Agency Of Nigeria

February 15, 2019 7:05 PM

African Centre for Entrepreneurship and Information Development (ACEIDEV), an NGO, has deployed 147 observers across the state to observe the general elections, particularly vote buying/selling.

Voting process going on in Kogi State

Mr James Ugochukwu, Executive Director of the organisation, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lafia on Friday.

Ugochukwu said the observers had been deployed to the electoral wards across the state to observe the electoral process, collation of results and observe any vote buying/selling.

We have trained our observers and they will be looking at incidents of vote buying/selling during the exercise.

Let me also inform the public that we have a communication link with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to ensure that we can reach out to them in case of any incident.

So, the duty of the observers aside other duties are to report any one engaged in buying or selling votes.

We are hoping that politicians desist from vote buying as well as the electorate.

Ugochukwu said aside the 147 deployed to the electoral wards, 39 observers had also been deployed to all the local government areas in the state, three observers for each area.

The essence of the local government observers and electoral ward observers is for them to gather the results they have and reconcile with what will be announced in the end.

The idea behind this is to ensure that the incident of vote manipulation at the ward level will be curtailed or minimised, he said.

He said the observers would also take cognisance of the conduct of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials to ascertain how they carry out their responsibilities as the umpire.

The executive director said the observers were also to monitor the commissions logistic arrangements and the deployment of electoral materials to polling units across the state.

We will monitor the opening of polls on Saturday to know the time the commissions officials will arrive at the various centres.

We are partnering with all the grassroots organisations in the state for a successful exercise.

News Agency Of Nigeria