The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has held a dialogue session to find ways to curb incidence of vote-buying in the forthcoming governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun States.
Speaking at the roundtable discussion in Abuja yesterday tagged: ‘Anambra 2017: a Postmortem and lessons for 2018 elections in Ekiti, and Osun States Commission,” an INEC National Commissioner, Prof. Okey Ibeanu, said the aim is to improve on measures to check violence and vote-buying.
“I want to tell you that the dialogue helped to put the commission on the right pedestal in order to ensure that Anambra State elections were not only successful but also non-violent and hitch-free.
“I believe that the discussions will further help the commission not only to improve on the work in progress but also add mor spice to the innovations that are already in place,” he said
Ibeanu also said the idea behind the roundtable was to see “how INEC can leverage on both successes and failures in the last major election in Anambra State to improve our policies, procedures and processes in Ekiti and Osun State elections and ultimately in the 2019 general election.”
The commissioner said although Anambra State bore the brunt of the test run of various policies and innovations of the commission, the success registered in the elections was obvious and palpable.
He said the commission has noted the mistakes and would apply it in subsequent elections to make the process better.
Guest speakers at the event lamented that vote-buying has become pervasive and it seems neither INEC nor security agencies have been able to do much about it.
