Group Wants INEC To Address Voter Apathy, Void Votes

Yes Project, A Civil Society Organisation (CSO), yesterday called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to address some of the lapses encountered during the February 23, elections.
The Executive Director of YES Project, Mr Oceh-Precious Edeh, at a news conference in Abuja expressed concern over the low turnout of voters and the number of void votes during the elections.
Edeh said that the call became necessary, because in spite of INEC’s success in conducting the Feb.23 elections, the above challenges including late arrival of sensitive materials to polling units remained the major challenges.
He said that these challenges should be adequately looked into ahead of the upcoming March 9 elections.
“As we approach the next set of elections slated for March 9, I call on INEC to ensure that some of those problems relating to logistics, card reader and the likes are not repeated.
“The issue of the welfare and protection of ad hoc staff should be of utmost priority as we prepare for the elections.
“Of great concern is also the high number of void votes and low turnout for elections, so, I urge INEC to embark on voter education ahead of the polls to correct the challenges.’’
Edeh said that this would go a long way in reducing the number of void votes in the next elections and encourage electorates to come to exercise their civic duty.
He called on security agencies to look critically into the issues of poor deployment of agents at polling units.
He also urged them to do everything humanly possible to avoid loss of lives as was witnessed in the Feb. 23 elections.
The executive ditector urged the electorate to come out en masse to exercise their civic duty and support credible candidates of their choice.
Edeh, however, congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari and all the elected leaders in the Feb. 23 elections, for their victory and appealed to Buhari to keep to his promise of youth and women inclusion in his next cabinet.
He also called on the aggrieved candidates who disagreed with the results to eschew violence and take the option of a recourse to the judicial process.