A civil rights activist and Executive Director, Women Advocates' Research and Documentation Center, Dr. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, on Sunday attributed the success of the Ekiti State governorship election to proper civic education by the independent National Electoral Commission.
She however stated that the outcome of the Ekiti guber poll should not be a yardstick to measure the preparedness of INEC for the 2015 general elections.
Afolabi in an interview with our correspondent said, "I do not think we can use the Ekiti Election to measure the preparedness of INEC for 2015 giving the number of INEC personnel that participated in the Ekiti Elections, I doubt if INEC will be able to send 10 federal Commissioners per state to the 36 states for Presidential Election in February 2015. Obviously INEC still needs to do a lot of tidying up.
"As an observer at the Ekiti Election, the election was peaceful and had a huge turn out of voters, an indication that proper civic education was conducted prior the election, INEC showed much improvement in the distribution of materials and the deployment of adhoc staff and materials to polling centers on time. However, the presence of security forces was quite intimidating creating an atmosphere of tension, some arrest were also made, I believe the security forces in Nigeria are yet to come to terms to understand their roles during the conduct of election.
"Kayode Fayemi concession speech, is a good development in this context and I believe people should emulate the great man for succumbing to the supposed will of the people."
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