The North-Central zonal director of Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), Mr. Steve Aluko, has said that reports from the just-concluded Osun State governorship election revealed that voter apathy is gradually fading away as there is a renewed interest in the electoral process by all and sundry in the country.
Aluko stated this in an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP when asked to comment on the conduct of Osun State governorship poll, which held at the weekend.
He said the outing was positive in the sense that the turnout of the voters was impressive and rapidly on the increase.
He added that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has tried its best, at least, the exercise was improved upon compared to the one it conducted in Ekiti State.
He explained that politicians too conducted themselves in a peaceful manner as there was no much violence at least on the day of the election.
He noted that in terms of transparency, collation, transmission of the results and the use of the BVAS technology by INEC, it was a welcome development but that is not enough to over celebrate because there were few cases of vote buying and selling.
In his words: “It is not yet over, but beyond that I think INEC should look inwards and review their efforts thus far in Ekiti and Osun States and prepare for the larger election in 2023. This isolation election is not enough to be preparatory ground for a predictable positive 2023 general election.”
Aluko further stressed that, “But it also showed clearly that people can effect their will if they so desire and this has given the electoral process some level of credibility but we should not celebrate yet until when we have the larger election because politicians can be funny depending on the interest at stake.”
The CLO zonal director argued that it also goes to reinforce that when people have mandate either as a political party, they tend to underestimate other people which often leads to their downfall, adding that reports from Osun State showed clearly that there was underestimation of critical stakeholders and that is why the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) lost the election.
He further pointed out that if Nigerians must deliberately take the decision to open up the democratic space, then what happened in Ekiti and Osun States will be a child’s play.
Aluko added that people should take their destiny into their hands as the nation looks forward for a good outing in 2023 general election.
