As Nigerians await the outcome of last Saturday presidential and National Assembly elections, the electoral umpire (INEC), deserves commendation for conducting a free and fair election. Though there were delays in voting and pockets of violence in some states, it can be adjudged as largely peaceful. Eligible youths of voting age and other voters came out en masse to cast their vote. President Muhammadu Buhari should take credit for signing the Electoral bill into law which paved the way for the deployment of technology in the conduct of the election in the country. With BVAS, voters were accredited with relative ease, leading to the conduct of free, fair and transparent poll. Of equal importance is the naira redesign policy which curtailed votes buying. There was a departure from excessive use of cash by moneybag politicians. In fact, the election did not witness the use of money as obtained in the previous poll. The political culture has changed leading to the change of voting patterns. With this development, one can confidently say that our over two decades of democracy has improved significantly.
The Independent National Electorate commission (INEC), has started announcing the results of Presidential and National Assembly elections. Winners of the national assembly elections have continued to emerge from different constituencies in the country. As usual, it is expected that the winners should be magnanimous with victory while losers should accept the outcome of the results in good faith. In any elections, there must be a winners and losers. Desperate politicians should refrain from making unguarded utterances capable of igniting crisis. If they have genuine cases of irregularities arising from the just concluded elections, they should take them to the election tribunal which will soon be inaugurated to entertain elections matters. This is the best option to seek redress instead of recruiting thugs to foment trouble.
Ibrahim Mustapha, Pambegua, Kaduna State
