Osun election will be better than Ekiti – INEC Chairman

Despite widespread applause for the recent Ekiti State governorship election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is working hard to make the upcoming Osun State governorship election better, the Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, has said.

He said no effort would be spared to make the Osun election scheduled for August 9, 2014, more qualitative in all aspects than the June 21 Ekiti State election which has been widely acclaimed as the best so far by the Commission. He spoke on Tuesday, July 1, 2014, when the Ambassador of the Peoples Republic of China, H. E. Gu Xiaojie, paid a courtesy visit to the Commission.

#EkitiDecide: Free, fair election impossible with militarisation, says MURIC

The Muslim Right Campaign has said it would be difficult to categorise the Ekiti State governorship election as free and fair with the massive presence of military forces. The group in a statement by its Director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola on Saturday, said elections should not be held under “coercive militarisation”.

Akintola, who described the presence of the military forces as “flagrant display of federal power”, doubted the intention behind the deployement of 36,590 security personnel for the election.

He said, “We are flabbergasted by this open invasion and flagrant display of Federal power. It is nothing short of Gestapo-style treatment. We strongly condemn this attempt at arm-twisting the liberty-loving and democracy-inclined people of Ekiti State into accepting doctored results of a gubernatorial election which the ruling party is hell-bent on turning into its favour.