With respect to the ongoing presidential election, the Head of US Election Observers, Amb. Mark Green spoke extensively during a recent interview on some of the challenges facing Nigeria’s electoral process and what the INEC should do in order to be more transparent and erase suspicions. He also spoke about other issues emanating from the collation of results by the INEC.
Green said the first thing to understand is that democracy is a journey and that no democracy in the world is perfect, albeit, more representatives of democracy show up as we progress. He also said Nigerians were very resilient during the voting exercise as they came out in the their large numbers despite the harsh weather and all the other obstacles to ensure that their votes count and their voices heard.
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Speaking on INEC, he said the problem with INEC was a lack of transparency, thus creating room for suspicions. He said they should be more transparent by communicating well with the electorates, explaining when they have difficulties and so on. He also revealed that one of the challenges was that the process wasn’t tested before the actual election so the challenges weren’t observed on time.
He said “Most importantly, it’s transparency. People in this country (Nigeria) are hungry for democracy. I think INEC would be well served to be 100% transparent all the time.
So on election day, if there’s a problem that pops up, simply hold a press conference or put out a statement saying ‘look, this the problem, this is why and this is how long it will take to fix the it’. I think when there’s silence, that creates a vacuum and then people get fearful. They start to get suspicious.”
