In a recent interview on Arise TV, an Anti-corruption activist and election observer, Hamzat Lawal, catalogued the different ways the electoral process was compromised. He said that it is evident that this election was utterly different from the presidential elections. For instance, the BVAS functioned at 70% as opposed to the 30% it performed during the presidential elections.
Something else that was pretty obvious was the cooperation between security agencies and the thugs perpetrating violence at the polling unit.
Lawal said in his journey from state to state and through the 20,000 observers deployed around Nigeria that well-armed security personnel were visible at all the checkpoints. It would require active collusion between these “political thugs” and security agents to cause trouble and exit” without being caught.
He said that two of his female observers were harmed while trying to report live the going-ons at their polling unit. They observed that political party agents were interfering with the electoral process.
He said, “We escalated all the reports of violence or potential violence to the security agencies, but nobody responded.”
