The Centre for Transparency Advocacy has decried the conduct of security agencies during the presidential and national assembly elections on Saturday. The CTA lauded the media for doing a great job in guarding the nation’s democracy. While it Indicted the security officials of performing below expectation during the electoral process.
The Organization said that the presence of the security personnels made no difference because it did not prevent the actions of thugs and hoodlums.
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Prior to this, there were reports of thugs who showed up in some polling units to harass and intimidate voters. Setting off actions to ground the peaceful course of the process. A case of thugs shooting and killing voters was recorded at a ward in Rivers state. Also, in a ward at Okirika in the same state, INEC officials were not allowed to conduct the election as thugs harassed and they turned back.
More so, Lagos state was not left out in the chaos as there was a case of burning of ballot boxes in a ward at Okota, which occurred after the people had voted.
In Osun state also, reports have it that thugs threatened electoral officers as well as electorates in Iba village where they aimed at disrupting the process. This is just to mention but a few. These crises have caused the Independent Electoral Commission to postpone the elections in certain parts of the aforementioned states as the disruption crippled the process on Saturday. The new dates are however, yet to be announced.
Owing to these happenings in diverse places across the country, The CTA called out the security agencies in a statement it described them as “unpurposeful” accusing them of doing nothing to curb these criminal actions during the election. The group stressed it is displeased with the security officials and and accused the same of staying idle while hoodlums and thugs jeopardized the credibility of the election.
The organisation issued this statement on Sunday afternoon as it gathered reports from it’s observers dispatched across the country.
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