The Executive Director, Conscience for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution (CHRCR), based in Lokoja, Kogi state, Comrade Idris Miliki has called on the states, federal government and the National Assembly to guarantee fair, free and acceptable council election in future.
Idris Miliki stated this Monday in Lokoja, while presenting the report on the just concluded council election held in the 21 local government areas of the state.
Maliki described democracy as the best form of government, stressed that elections play a pivotal role in the system of representative democracy.
The human rights activist added that it also serves as ingredient of development, where it is properly conducted, noting that it also encourages inclusivity and participation of all.
Miliki berated the current government in Kogi state for deliberately refusing to conduct Local Government elections since the expiration of elected local government chairmen and councillors since 2016.
“All hope where put in place when the current Kogi state Independent Electoral Commission (KSIEC) was constituted in the first quarter of 2020.
“The commission on September 9th, 2020 released a timetable which stipulated that elections shall be conducted in the 21 local governments and 239 wards.
“The election was held as stipulated on the timetable with all forms of electoral malpractices which did not meet international standard of conducting election in this century,” he lamented.
The activist observed that pre-elections activities indicated that not much was done by KSIEC on civic and voters education, lamenting that even political parties did not conduct transparent primaries that produced candidates that participated in the elections.
“Materials were not distributed to the wards on time, which made it difficult for electoral materials to reach their respective polling units
“On the day of elections, several polling units did not received materials as at 8:00am, contrary to the notice of Poll released by KSIEC on the 23rd of November, 2020 that voting shall commence by 8:00am.
“It was also noticed across the state that several polling units did not received materials at all, as election officials were not available to conduct the elections”.
