Yakubu Maikyau, President of the Nigerian Bar Association, believes that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) can perform better in the governorship and state assembly elections on March 18 than it did in the presidential and National Assembly elections on February 25.
The electoral body has faced criticisms from different quarters following the conduct of the presidential elections which experienced some hitches including failure to upload polling unit results electronically in real time as promised by the commission before the polls.
However, Maikyau, on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, said INEC has learnt some lessons from the last election and are poised to do better on Saturday.
“I will talk about my expectation. I still believe that INEC can do more or better than what it did in the last election held on the 25 and I can say so because I am also an observer. I went around the Federal Capital Territory and before then, Thursday before the election on 25 of February 2023, we did not see the sort of deployment of electoral materials like we have seen this time around preceding the March 18 for the governorship and state houses of assembly elections.
“So, what that tells me is that whatever lapses that we saw on the election held on the 25, INEC is deliberately doing what it needs to do to deal with those issues. That is why in the prelude to this our conversation we saw how election materials are being distributed to several places across the country which we didn’t see before the 25 of February.
“So, I believe that INEC has learnt some lessons from the last elections and that they are taking steps to correct some of those things,” Maikyau said.
He urged INEC to ensure that the confidence that has been generated before the election is sustained so that people can accept the outcome of the election and they will be happy that what they have gone out to demonstrate is actually the reflection of what is seen in the outcome.
The NBA president also called on the commission to ensure that those found wanting in discharging their duties are reported to the police in order for their cases to be prepared for prosecution.