The Cleen Foundation Electoral Security Support Center praised the conduct of security personnel in Saturday’s Osun gubernatorial election.
Ruth Olofin, acting executive director of the foundation, said this on Saturday in Abuja at a press conference on the conduct of security personnel in voting.
Ms. Olofin, represented by Chigozirim Okoro, program manager, said that the conduct of security personnel deployed on electoral duties was commendable.
“The Cleen Foundation, in line with its mandate to promote public safety, deployed 60 citizen observers to the state’s 30 Local Government Areas (LGAs).
“It is to observe the conduct of security personnel on electoral duty in the Osun election.
“The ESSC observed, tracked, documented, escalated, and tracked security-related developments at the 30 LGAs where its observers were deployed.
“The ESSC noted that 85.1 percent of security personnel arrived early at voting units in the 30 LGAs,” he said.
According to her, the security personnel at the polling stations, in compliance with electoral laws, were not armed.
She did, however, say that armed security officers were present in some polling units such as PU 007, Ward 29/17/06/015 Adeniji, Ila Local Government Area.
“Other security men on election duty kept a reasonable distance from the voting units and patrolled the units periodically.
“68.1 percent of voting units had three or more security personnel, 93.6 percent used easily identifiable identification tags, while 40.4 and 53.2 percent of the security were accessible.
“And most of the ESSC observers felt safe and secure in the voting units,” he said.
He commended the personnel of the police and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) for their good conduct and urged them to maintain professionalism until the end of the electoral process.
Ms. Olofin said that the general behavior of the security personnel was good.
He said there was a need to investigate cases of vote buying seen at the polls and he made sure to remove them from the country’s electoral process.
He praised the Independent National Electoral Commission for its coordination and the near absence of logistical challenges in conducting the elections.
He urged the commission to investigate and prosecute electoral offenders, especially those who have been involved in vote buying.
(YAYA)