The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been accused by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Ogun State of not providing the party with polling agents’ tags, which resulted in the party’s inability to monitor elections in more than 1500 polling units during the presidential and National Assembly election.
According to the party, INEC did not provide more than 75% of the SDP polling agents’ tags, and the commission prevented the party agents from monitoring elections. The State Chairman, Yinka Ola Williams, disclosed this during a press conference held in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State. Williams explained that polling agents’ tags from some LGs like Ifo, Sagamu, Ipokia, and Ogun Waterside were not released.
The party has written a letter to INEC through the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Niyi Ijalaye, but the commission has neither taken any steps to address the lapses nor responded to the complaint.
“On Election day most of our agents were driven away. What is even more annoying is that in a local government when we are supposed to have 173 agent tags, only 90 were given to us. On the day of the election we realized that, out of 90 tags given to us, only 20 were useful because they bear the code of other States.”
“Even our agents with tags carrying SDP, they were still not allowed to monitor the election. Out of the ones they gave us, we saw tags of APC, PDP and other parties. We don’t want to say that, it was deliberate on the part of INEC to stop our members from monitoring the election.
“As a party, we have the right to monitor the election. Every party has the right. If the majority of our agents cannot monitor what happens on Saturday it is not good,” he said.
The party cautioned INEC to address the deficiencies to prevent a repeat in the upcoming gubernatorial and House of Assembly election. In reply, Niyi Ijalaye, the REC, explained that the problem arose because the party failed to provide complete names of its polling agents during the online registration.
Ijalaye clarified that this issue affected all political parties since none of them submitted the complete list during the online registration.
