Princess Kelechi
The CLEEN Foundation have applauded security and law enforcement agencies, led by the Nigeria Police Force for the “good conduct” of its personnel in the Osun State elections which the organisation said contributed to peaceful electoral outcomes so far.
The Foundation also lauded the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other key Stakeholders for their “professional conducts” during the election as well as citizens of the state for their peaceful conduct.
This was contained in a preliminary statement on the ongoing Governorship election on Saturday in the state and signed by Ruth Olofin, Acting Executive Director, CLEEN Foundation.
The Foundation explained that its Election Security Support Centre, observed, tracked, documented, escalated and followed up on security-related developments across the 30 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Osun State, where our “Citizen Observers” were deployed.
“In general, CLEEN Foundation observed that most security personnel were reported to be of good conduct while a few were reported to be of fair/bad conduct. CLEEN Foundation will continue to monitor their conduct as the election progresses.
“CLEEN Foundation observed that most security personnel at the polling units in compliance with electoral laws were not armed. Majority of CLEEN Foundation observers across the 30 Local Government Areas in the 2022 Governorship Election in Osun State reported that they felt safe and secured at the polling unit,” the statement read.
“According to the data from CLEEN Foundation ESSC, 55.3% of security personnel were observed to be impartial, 6.4% somewhat impartial while 38.3% were not impartial. Some of the alleged partiality against the security personnel on election duty is their fairlure to stop/arrest persons involved in vote trading across the polling units in the state,” it added.
The foundation therefore called on security agencies to investigate and address the observed cases of vote trading and other electoral offenses. ” Furthermore, CLEEN calls on INEC and security agencies to continue to maintain this level of professionalism till the end of the polls,” the statement added.