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Peaceful election requires stakeholders to play by the rules -NCMP

By Ihesiulo Grace 5 December 2019 114 No comment

Abuja – Nigeria Community Movement Party (NCMP) says achieving peaceful and credible election in Nigeria requires all stakeholders, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) security agencies and political parties doing the right thing.

The party National Chairman, Mr Abidemi Ademola, stated this while speaking with newsmen, when he received INEC delegation from the Election and Party Monitoring Department, that were at the party national secretariat in Abuja on Thursday for verification exercise.

Ademola said that while INEC still had much to do to in improving the electoral system, stakeholders must play their roles the in accordance to the rules and regulations guiding elections.

“In the history of our electoral processes, I have never read or seen INEC chairman or staff of the commission snatching or runing away with ballot boxes.

” All I have seen or heard is political members or supporters destroying and disrupting the electoral process in favour of one candidate or the other, which must stop.

“The security agencies need to be more empower to discharge their responsibilities during elections without fear or favour,” Ademola said.

He also stressed the need for political parties to do the right thing and promote internal democracy that would reflect the true will of the people.

Ademola said that 2019 general elections and the recent Kogi and Bayelsa governorship elections had showed there were still lacuna in the Electoral Act and the country’s electoral processes.

“We have to start building a platform right now to solve these problems, especially the lives of Nigerians being lost during elections.

“It not every time we go into election that we should be killing ourselves.

“We have to look at how we can have electronic voting system, how we can improve the sensitisation process to make sure that the youths are not been used for electoral violence,” he said.

Ademola said that the political parties were doing their best to ensure that the country electoral processes become more credible and peaceful, including sponsoring of bills in the National Assembly.

He, however advised Nigerians to be more involved in active politics by being card carriers of registered political parties, if the process of chosen the leadership of the country must be redefined.

Ademola appealed to citizens, both able and persons living with disabilities, to read parties’ constitutions and their manifestoes, join them to build standard parties that to change the narrative of leadership and question the integrity of governance in Nigeria.

“Don’t just be a political party supporter, be a card carrying member so that your voice can be lend to the system.

“We need to support partisanship, join a political party, build it to a standard and use the structure to solve the problems of Nigeria,” he said.

Ademola who said that INEC team led by Mrs Adewon Bola, was at the party national secretariat to check it level of compliance to the constitution and Electoral Act, expressed confidence that the party would meet up.

He said that the NCMP which was registered in 2018 had more than a million verifiable registered members with expanding structures across the federation, while it was it was strategising to win elective positions in the future elections.

However, INEC delegation said they were not authorised to speak with the press.(NAN)