The Nigerian Women Trust Fund’s Gender and Election Watch has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to sanction erring officials and maintain public trust.

The group’s Chief Executive Officer /Founder, Gender and Election Watch Room ElectHER and ElectHER Election Hub, Mrs Brenda Ibijoke, said that though the group was impressed with the peaceful and successful conduct of the election by the commission, there were reservations regarding the conduct of some of its officials.

Mrs Ibijoke said, “It is crucial that INEC hands over any official or ad-hoc staff involved in electoral malpractices to security agencies as a deterrent, in accordance with the amended Electoral Act 2022 to maintain public trust. The election is over, but the public is keenly watching and waiting to see what will be done to those INEC officials that compromised the system on Saturday, November 11 in Kogi State.

“NWTF deployed 50 observers across the state while ElectHER deployed a visual documentation (photography and videography) team across several local government areas and made some observations.’’

According to her, GEW observation revealed a massive turnout at some polling units while others remained minimal despite the late arrival of INEC officials and materials at most polling units across the state.

She expressed happiness that the turnout of women was particularly encouraging, particularly at PU 22-12-01-098, located in the open space beside RCCG Lokogoma Phase 1, comprising at least 50 per cent of the 126 total votes cast at the polling units.

“Our gladness was simply because of a fact that a democratic electoral process requires female participation not just as an electorate but candidates of political parties desiring to lead and change the narrative.

“In most polling units where GEW observed, there were queues and priority voting for women, elderly and people with disabilities.

“But disappointingly, there was minimal presence and participation of the PWDs, which may be attributed to factors such as the location of polling units, lack of ramps, and the absence of dedicated assistants at the polling units for their support,” she said.

She urged INEC to provide dedicated polling units for PWDs in future elections in the country.

Mrs Ibijoke lamented the situation where some NWTF observers were attacked and intimidated by party agents at several polling units, especially at PU 22-20-01-006 in Isanlu Kotun, where an observer’s phone was seized and the identification tag stolen.

She stated, “Intimidation of any observer during an election is antithetical to democratic values and must be stopped immediately. While we commend the security operatives for the demonstration of high professionalism at maintaining peace in the Kogi election for the first time, security agents must remain impartial to protect the integrity of the Nigerian electoral process.’’

According to her, the ‘Gender Observation Centre’ is a joint initiative of the NWTF ‘Gender and Election Watch Room,’ and ElectHER’s ‘ElectHER Election Hub’ aimed at observing the November 11 off-cycle election in Kogi State from a gender perspective.

(NAN)