Two prominent civic groups have released their preliminary statement on the exercise.
The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) said they observed that “against all the odds, the voting process of the ongoing 2018 governorship election in Ekiti State commenced without significant logistical hitches.”
“This may be attributed to the well-coordinated arrangements of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ahead of the election to ensure early arrival of election officials and sensitive materials to various Registration Area Centres (RACs) across the existing 16 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state.
“The commission is congratulated for the Etrack to track the location and movement of vehicles carrying sensitive election materials in real time to their locations.”
The groups, who trained and deployed about 100 observers for the election, also noted the enthusiasm among voters for the election.
“While it is too early to ascertain the level of voter turnout across the State, the electorate has shown a high level of enthusiasm in exercising their franchise, as most polling units visited in the early hours of Election Day had voters already waiting for INEC officials to arrive and commence accreditation and voting by 8.00 a.m.
“At the start, the voting process was conducted peacefully in most polling units visited by our observers. A few hours into the vote, however, there were few reported cases of violence-related incidents. In some of the polling units visited, we observed that the security personnel conducted themselves responsibly concerning their response to curtailing vote trading.”
The groups, in the report signed by Idayat Hassan and DapoOlorunyomi for CDD and PTCIJ respectively, also highlighted the roles of security agencies in the election.
“Correctly, we observed security agents preventing voters from taking their phones into voting cubicles.”