NGO Unveil Post Election Analysis Report

Okonta Emeka Okelum, Asaba

A Non Governmental Organization, Youth Alive Foundation(YAF) recently at Asaba unveiled post election situation analysis report on the 2019 general elections.

Briefing stakeholders drawn from the media, relegious bodies, security agencies, traditional institutions, youth & women group and repreßentatives of government agencies, the organization shared reports on the gaps and challenges recorded during the conduct of the general elections.

Mr Joseph Otu Bassey, monitoring and evaluation officer of the organization, maintained that the townhall meeting is on going in the theee South South States of Delta, Rivers and Akwa Ibom, where the organisation carried out her election observation exercises.

According to him, YAF, prior to the elections carried out risk assessment exercise on violence prone communities across the states of the South South region.

Some volunteer organizations were selected and trained as election monitors, he pointed out.

The organization expressed dismay over the violent outcome of  elections in Rivers State.

Our Organization selected 90 election monitors, trained and deployed them to Delta, Rivers and Akwa Ibom States, with a zonal monitoring hub at Akwa Ibom State.

We collaborated with the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) on monitoring duty in all selected states.

Our zonal hub received real time information from monitors in all the three project implementation states from our field monitors, received calls and text messages from the general public as well as from the media on the conduct of security officers, INEC Ad Hoc Staff, party agents and voters, Bassey noted.

Stakeholders present at the townhall meeting shared their views.

Some stakeholders noted that there were many cases of violence recorded but expressed their feelings about the response of security opperatives during and after the elections.

A cross section of security operatives present at the townhall meeting aggreed that there were incidents of and pockets of violence cases in the states observed, but maintained that with the cooperations and tip off from citizens, they were able to nip the situation in the bud.

The organization noted that the ongoing townhall meetings within the three states are one of the post elections engagement designed to seek stakeholders input towards making the electoral process more transparent, credible, free and fair.

Armed with violence incident forms,  and a dedicated phone numbers, election monitors shared details with the zonal hub on time, type and location of violent incidents, as well as perpetrators, victims and impact of violence and response from communities involved, security agencies and government actors.

Augustine Ojie, one of the project volunteers, shared thougths around the importance of the project as well as the uses of findings and recommendations from the report.

The reasons for this report include that we know that it could be used for research purposes, rescue or immediate interventions at the grassroot levels, Ojie pointed out.

For Mr Chidi Emmanuel, staff of the National Orientation Agency, told stakeholders about their pre election exercises aimed at making sure that citizens participated freely.

We carried out campiagns on voters rights, voters education, campaigned against vote buying, Chidi observed.

Stakeholders cited numerous cases of intimidations against voters and urged INEC and other stakeholders on the need to fashion out means at avoiding such ugly trend.

Youth Alive Foundation(YAF) with dismay pointed out some limitations and challenges recorded during the just concluded general elections.

Joseph Bassey, earlier during his opening remarks noted that issues of late opening of polls, voters apathy and low turn out, unsatisfactory conduct of some security officials, constituted some trends the organization was not happy with.

The many cases of electoral process disruption from cultists in the states observed as well as cases of premeditated electoral violence and that of impunity for violence, discredited the process, YAF noted.