BY TAIWO FAROTIMI
A non government organisation, NGO has rejected verdict of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC that it did not find evidence of underaged voters in its register, particularly in Kano State. The NGO, Human and Environmental Development Agenda Resource Centre, HEDA has therefore demanded for the full report in the interest of the country.
A statement by HEDA says that the application signed by Olanrewaju Siraju , its chairman added that such declaration would aid investigation by the civil society to probe into reported sharp practices in elections held in the past.
INEC instituted the probe following publication of video clips in the social media of underaged voters at the last council polls in Kano. The initial reaction of a Kano State official was that the videos making the rounds were not recorded during the said local government election, rather the recordings were done during the presidential elections in 2015.
It was a slip, the implications of which were not given much thought by the official. Trouble is that it puts the national electoral umpire on the defensive, though it had earlier absolved itself, indicating that council polls were the business of the State government. But critics responded by reminding INEC that the register used was generated by it and not the State.
The criticism and the statement of the state official prompted the establishment of a panel by INEC to investigate the matter. It is to be expected that the NGO would take it to task because some of the election monitoring groups claimed to have noticed incidences of underaged voting even during the 2015 election.
