A member of the People Democratic Party in Nigeria has suggested fractionalising of elections in Nigeria in order to achieve the kind of credibility recorded in the Ekiti State governorship election.
On Channels Television’s programme, Sunrise Daily, Mr Akin Osuntokun, commended the efforts of the electoral commission in the conduct of the election widely described as credible, free and fair.
Mr Osuntokun, who was a former Managing Director of News Agency of Nigeria, said claims that some ‘underground acts’ happened in Ekiti were laughable.
He, however, pointed out that the huge presence of security personnel in the state during the election was a source of worry, as the security strategy could not be sustained during the general elections.
“I have never seen an election so policed in my life and what worries me is that if that is what is required to have a free and fair election, we are not likely to get it in a country-wide elections. It is going to stretch the capacity of security agencies and of monitors.
“People are celebrating and there is cause for the celebration on the basis that it was free and fair, but the logistics, preparations and what was needed to get that done was beyond the capacity of Nigeria in country-wide elections. Will you take 100,000 thousand security personnel to one state when you have elections in 36 states?
“We have to look at it and if we are realistic that we want to repeat the standard of election that we had in Ekiti state, we have to start looking at fractionalising the conduct of the elections. That is the principal lesson to learn from that,” he said.
According to him, the deployment of security personnel for election is a factor that should be considered before the 2015 general elections.
“We must try as much as possible to apply ourselves to the resources that we have,” he said, stressing the need for the number of security personnel to be reduced in the next governorship election in Osun State as a test ahead of the 2015 elections.
Mr Osuntokun described Fayose’s victory as a plus to the PDP, saying that the governor-elect’s victory came as a result of his performance during the period he was governor.
