Political actors and their supporters have been admonished for attacks on women during elections.

A Non-governmental Organisation, known as The Electoral Hub on Friday expressed shock over the attack on women and called on politicians to desist from the act. Condemning it, he group said: “The attack in various forms such as physical harm, intimidation, vote suppression, lack of adherence to priority voting, bullying, and violent attacks deepen the exclusion of women from participating in politics.

“These actions further deepen the exclusion of women in the electoral process and as such, we call on the government and security agencies to ensure that women have a conducive environment to cast their vote as the right to vote is also human rights.”

The Electoral Hub said it remains committed to promoting electoral knowledge, accountability, and integrity and hence, adding: “We call on the relevant stakeholders responsible for issues arising from the presidential election to double their efforts to ensure that such issues do not repeat themselves in the forthcoming governorship and state assemblies elections.”

According to the group, “We also urge the political parties to desist from causing chaos and violence. Similarly, we urge the youth not to allow themselves to be used by politicians to cause violence and disrupt the elections.

“To achieve successful election, all stakeholders including citizens must work together to ensure integrity and sanctity of the electoral process.

“We urge citizens to play our parts by coming out to vote and protect our votes.

“Our Election Observation Centre will be actively documenting and analyzing conduct and misconduct of the election from our observers deployed across the country, media and citizen observers.”

The group charged INEC to be more proactive and improve on their activities for the today’s elections.

It urged that the ad-hoc staff should be better sensitized and trained; and security agencies should be professional in carrying out their role.

“Therefore, we expect the following:

“Early Arrival of Electoral Personnel and materials:

“Electoral personnel and materials to be at the polling units on time across the country.”

It continues in a pre-election statement saying: “According to INEC, voting should commence at 8:30 am and end at 2:30 pm.

“Adequate Security Presence: Adequate security presence in all polling units.

“The presence of security will help curb voter suppression and intimidation, violence and protect the electoral personnel and materials from hoodlums.

“Excellent Performance of Ad-hoc Staff: Ad-hoc staff should be better sensitized and trained to have improved performance of their role.”

It went on: “Due to the issues arising from the aftermath of the presidential election, the governorship/state assembly elections which were originally slated for March 11, 2023, were shifted to March 18, 2023.

“According to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), this is to allow the Commission ample time to reconfigure the BVAs for the successful conduct of the Governorship/House of Assembly Election.

“The Presidential/Senatorial/House of Representative election was characterized by late arrival of election materials and personnel, voting and counting of results into the night, late/delayed results upload to IReV, mal-administration at the PUs/poor ad-hoc staff performance, weak political party agents management, poor knowledge of legal framework by stakeholders, electoral violence, election related-violence against women, intimidation, voter suppression, poor institutional strategic communication, misinformation/disinformation and fake news.

“A very important issue arising from the election is the lack of adequate knowledge and understanding of the electoral process which led to a negative reaction in some parts of the country.

“Priority Voting for Vulnerable Groups: The elderly, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and Persons with Disabilities (PWD) should be given priority at the Polling Units to vote. Excellent functionality of the BVAS and Easy/Early Upload to IReV. In the Presidential election, the BVAS functioned excellently but upload to IReV was delayed in most places, which questioned the credibility of the election and the electoral body. "Therefore, we expect that this irregularity should be addressed to improve the credibility of the upcoming elections. High Voter Turn Out, especially of Urban/Middle Class and Women/Girls: "Presidential election turnout was low at less than 27%.

“We expect high turnout for the governorship and state assembly elections given their importance to citizens as lower and closer levels of governance. As we go into the last lap of the 2023 general election, we urged Nigerians to come out en masse to exercise their civic right and responsibility. It is important to note that voter participation is one of the criteria for determining the credibility of elections.”

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