YIAGA accuses military of intimidating voters

Youth Initiative for Advocacy, Growth and Advancement (YIAGA) has condemned the role played by the military in disruption of elections and intimidation of voters and electoral personnel in some states.

Speaking yesterday in Abuja, YIAGA Executive Director, Samson Itodo, called on security agencies, especially the military, to refrain from further disruption of elections in some states, such as Rivers.

Itodo said: “We call on President Buhari to call the military to order and ensure accountability for erring military officers.

“YIAGA Africa calls on security agencies to adequately deploy security to the polling units and result collation centres to prevent the rising trend of disruption of the process, intimidation of voters and INEC officials and threat to lives.”

He urged INEC to resolve issues of shortage of election materials, non-payment of allowances to ad hoc officials and malfunctioning smart card readers.

“The collation centres should be accessible to accredited observers, media and party agents. INEC should respond to reports of substitution of trained collation officers mid-way to elections in some states, including Plateau and Imo. INEC should ensure collation officers abide by the guidelines and regulations on management of margin of lead principle. Results should not be declared and winner returned, where the total number of registered voters in cancelled polling units affects the margin of lead between candidates, ” it noted.