By Matthew Don
The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Rom has said there were avoidable lapses in the conduct of the presidential and national assembly elections that produced President Muhammadu Buhari as the winner.
It said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should ensure the anomalies are corrected before the governorship and state assembly polls are held on March 9.
The body made its position known on Wednesday in a statement signed by Clement Nwankwo, the Executive Direcvtor, after the announcement of Buhari as reelected as president.
The statement read fully:
The Situation Room notes the declaration of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) returning President Muhammadu Buhari as the re-elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Situation Room congratulates President Buhari on his re-election. Situation Room also congratulates all the other candidates in this election and commends the people of Nigeria for turning out and casting their vote.
Situation Room acknowledges that there are candidates, political parties and indeed citizens who are aggrieved with the processes and outcome of the elections. Nigeria’s constitutional and legal frameworks have provided avenues to ventilate and seek redress.
Situation Room has closely followed and observed the electoral process from the beginning to this moment. We had issued a Threshold Document clearly stating the standard to which we will hold this election. We note that a lot of the expectations in the Threshold Document were not met.
We believe that there are sufficient reasons to demand an urgent convening of stakeholders to examine the lessons from these elections; identify evident shortcomings and lapses; and review to enshrine much needed reform of our electoral system. We also reiterate our call for effective mechanism ofaccountability for electoral offences.
While we acknowledge the efforts of INEC to conduct this election, we would like to emphasize that there were lapses inthis election that did not need to happen and INEC would need to immediately work on correcting those lapses ahead of the March 9 2019 State- level elections.
Situation Room calls on all Nigerians to prepare peacefully and come out and vote on March 9 2019 for the candidates of their choice.