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+--- Thread: "It was a sour experience" - Coordinator of Ekiti Election Observers Mission (/showthread.php?tid=3723)
"It was a sour experience" - Coordinator of Ekiti Election Observers Mission - Mhiz Rebecca - 07-17-2018
The Coordinator of the Committee for the Defence of
Human Rights (CDHR) Accredited Observers Mission
has described the just concluded Ekiti State
Governorship Election as a "sour and retrogressive
experience"
Giving further details, Folarin Olayinka, a Human Rights
defender and the National General Secretary of (CDHR)
said both major parties, APC and PDP resorted to vote
buying, and intimidation of voters.
"The foremost political parties APC, PDP
deprived the people of the right to choose
freely who to govern the State, they both took
advantage of the impoverished masses when
they resulted to vote buying, and intimidation
of voters. It is sad that our democracy is
progressively backward, am afraid if we will ever
get it right under this crop of political actors.
Since INEC was just there to set up and
complete the process, little can we blame the
umpire but the politicians."
"I am under no obligation to be economical with
the truth, the Ruling Party APC and the major
Opposition party PDP appeared to be bad
examples to our democracy through their
conduct, especially the vote buying syndrome
and total disrespect for the election rules.The
political parties took advantage of the orphans
who had obviously been impoverished. I have
not come to apportion blame to party A or B,
rather I have only summarized my experiences
in that short sentence. I am not contesting the
outcome(result) in anyway rather I owe my
conscience the obligation to state my
experiences accordingly. We maintained our
independence throughout the assignment and I
passionately felt sad that despite the INEC and
Security agencies efforts,our politicians still
acted retrogressive. I was expecting a process
devoid of the barbaric tradition of vote buying"