Independent National Electoral Commission INEC’s national commissioner for Edo, Rivers and Bayelsa States, May Agbumuche-Mbu, has lamented the degree of violence often associated with elections in Nigeria, saying it is akin only to a war situation.
Agbamuche-Mbu, who narrated as an example, what happened in Rivers State during the recent 2019 general election at a two-day seminar at the Electoral Institute in Abuja, however, sued for caution ahead of the November 16th governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi States.
In similar spirit, another INEC national commissioner, Amina Zakari, explained why inconclusive elections might be inevitable in certain instances, noting that where it was established that genuine voters had been disenfranchised by any means possible, it behooves the commission to capture the votes of such demographics.
On his part, a fellow national commissioner and chairman of the two-day seminar, which held preparatory to the Bayelsa and Kogi elections, Solomon Adedeji Soyebi, already foresaw a heavily monetised exercise in Bayelsa and Kogi, saying there would be intense vote-buying.
