Yiaga Africa, a civil society organisation, has decried the low turnout of voters in the just-concluded gubernatorial election in Ondo.

INEC declared Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa the winner of the poll.

Olayemi Akinwunmi, the vice-chancellor of the Federal University of Lokoja, Kogi, who declared the results, said Mr Aiyedatiwa polled 366,78 votes to defeat his major rival and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Agboola Ajayi, who had 117,845 votes. 

African Democratic Party’s Adeyemi Nejo came third with 4,138 votes.

However, in a press conference in Akure on Sunday, the programmes director of Yiaga, Cynthia Mbamalu, decried the low turnout of voters, citing factors such as lack of trust in the electoral process, quality of leadership and economic and security realities.

Ms Mbamalu noted that the turnout tallied with the organisation’s pre-election analysis, adding that post-election analysis will be conducted to identify other factors.

“The official turnout for this election is 24.8 per cent, which is within our estimate. We did indicate in our pre-election findings that there was a likelihood of lower voter turnout, and there are several factors that could contribute to that,” the Yiaga official stated.

While promising to make the details of their post-election analysis available soon, Ms Mbamalu charged media and civil society organisations on voter education in the country.

“That is why there’s a call to media, civil society, INEC and NOA that we need to invest more in political and voter education, especially from the media. Citizens consume a lot of content from the media platforms,” she added.