The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to exclude staff accused of malpractice during the February 25
This was made known in a statement issued by the NBA’s National Publicity Secretary, Akorede Habeeb-Lawal, on Wednesday in Abuja. The association also advised INEC to fix all bugs or glitches that affected the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines used for the presidential and national assembly elections.
The NBA supported Nigerians who showed perseverance and resilience despite facing challenges during the Presidential and National Assembly elections. The association stated it deployed over 1,000 INEC-accredited observers, drawn from 128 branches of the NBA, to monitor the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for voting day. Further information gathered from their observers revealed that only 8.2 per cent of eligible voters had rated their election as poor or very poor.
The Inspector-General of Police was called upon to timely deploy police officers for duty on March 11 when governorship and state houses of assembly elections were held across Nigeria. The association also asked political parties to educate their members on complying with Electoral Act regulations while abstaining from all acts which violate it.
Furthermore, those with proven records of misconduct engaging in malpractices such as late arrival of INEC officials at polling stations, malfunctioning BVAS machines, limited transmission/non-transmission of results via the IReV portal (INEC Results Viewing Portal), insecurity causing effects like violent attacks on the voters and officials among others are urged to be excluded come March 11 voting day.