By Adesoji Omosebi
The Independent Electoral Commission in the State of Osun organized its monthly lecture on Tuesday, August 27, 2019 witnessed a general consensus of blames of thuggery, electoral violence, rigging and vote buying on political class.
The lecture titled: Agenda Setting For The Conduct Of Free. Fair And Credible Election In Nigeria: Role of Media And Civil Societies Organizations was delivered by Civil Right Activist And National Coordinator Of Election Monitor, Mr Abiodun Ajijola.
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The Resident Electoral Commissioner of the State of Osun, Mr Segun Agbaje who gave his opening remarks said INEC was able to perform its roles as the Constitution provides.
He said there would not have been any reason for governorship rerun if APC and PDP had put their house in order before the election. The defections suffered by the major political parties gave rooms for slim margins of votes at governorship elections.
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Mr Agbaje gave an instance of his visit to Ireland election as an observer. He said he was surprised that there was no security agents nor party agents manning the polls during the elections and everything went well without any form of rigging or violence unlike what we had been witnessing in Nigeria.
The Guest Lecturer, Mr Ajijola reiterated the importance of all stakeholders to work together as a team for the success of our electoral system.
He told the media to work on their contents before publication, according to him, it would not be ideal to generalise an election as a failure when accurate data is not available.
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For instance, to say low or massive voters turnout without knowing the accurate numbers of voters in a polling centre or unit is not professional.
Ajijola said if contents are not well managed it could set the country on fire.
He enjoined the Civil Societies Organizations not to align with any political party to maintain their neutrality.
The participants present talked of the needs to regulate the Social Media against hate speeches and fake news.
It was widely accepted that if the political class can endeavour to play to the rules without vote buying, rigging, thuggery and violence INEC and security agents would have less work to do.
Participants wanted all those who violated electoral rules to face the wrath of the law to show as a deterrent for future occurrences.
www.sojworldnews.com (c) August 30, 2019
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