OrderPaper chief Epia push for Presidential, NASS elections to hold on separate dates

In a bid to ensure a level playing ground, the Executive Director OrderPaper, Mr Oke Epia has canvassed the reordering of the Presidential and National Assembly elections to hold on separate dates.

Epia while presenting the report of his outfit on the recently held 2023 general elections stressed the need to avert the repeat of a bandwagon effect whereby mediocres emerge victorious at the expense of competent candidates jostling for various legislative seats on election day.

Epia who was among civil societies organizations (CSO) partners supported by the USAID funded strengthening civil advocacy and local engagement (SCALE) project called on the Executive arm to liaise with the national Assembly to amend the Electoral Act to achieve the goal.

He said: “The practice of holding elections for legislative and executive positions same day is most likely to result in choosing lawmakers along the lines of a bandwagon trend instead of adequate knowledge of the capacity, competence and character of those seeking to be legislators.

” This is as a result of the predominant attention that the presidential candidates, their political parties and the process itself generates from the media, local and international observers as well as other stakeholders.

” This trickles down to the voters who are often influenced to switch loyalties in line with the presidential election, hence taking sides with the political party that wins the presidency at the federal level.

” Consequently, this culture often leads to the emergence of winners who largely did not win on their own personal strengths and merits.”

He called on the independent national electoral commission (INEC) to sort out logistics issues ahead of time to avert late arrival of officials to Polling Units in subsequent elections.

The pro-democracy activist called on INEC to avert the repeat of technical glitches in the functioning of the BVAS and IREV as well as liaise with security agencies to work out mechanisms that guard against voter intimidation, vote-buying and thuggery.

He said it behooves INEC to speedily ensure the prosecution of offenders of the electoral law and its election guidelines to serve as deterrent in future elections.