The Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA) has berated politicians and party agents over the pockets of violence and intimidation recorded during governorship and Houses of Assembly elections held on Saturday.
The CTA Executive Director, Ms Faith Nwadishi, told newsmen at the Elections Situation Room in Asaba that such action was capable of triggering voter-apathy.
Nwadishi, however, urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to up their games in order to boost confidence in the system and engender democracy.
She said that CTA deployed 2,000 observers across the country, held a stakeholders’ meeting and set up its Situation Room in Asaba.
“The preliminary findings from our field observers revealed that there were remarkable improvement on the time of arrival of INEC officials and materials.
“However, there were reports of late arrivals in some polling units across the states but not significant enough to cause delay in early commencement of voting; many polling units were opened around 8.30 am.
“Across the states, reports from our observers showed that in about 82 per cent of the polling units, INEC officials and materials arrived between 7am and 8:30 a.m.
“In our conclusion, we noted that once again that Nigerian politicians have proven to be impervious to change”, she said.
According to her, on the part of security agencies, there are clear evidences of dereliction of duty and complicity with the politicians to deny some Nigerians their franchise.
“This has in no small measure emboldened miscreants to snatch, disrupt and destroy election materials.
“ INEC is encouraged to become more proactive and put measures in place to mitigate attempts by enemies of credible elections to truncate our democracy,” she said.