CLEEN Foundation Expresses Adequate Preliminary Report On Conduct of Security Personnel on Ondo state governorship election

A CLEEN Foundation has over the weekend expressed its preliminary report on the conduct of security personnel during the ongoing 2024 governorship election in Ondo State. 

The Foundation stated that the

election is a critical component of democracy, providing citizens the opportunity to express their will in the selection of democratic leaders and shape the governance of their society.

They said that the Ondo state 2024 governorship election is one of the staggered elections in the country and has attracted interest from within and outside the country while the preparedness and discharge of constitutional responsibilities of stakeholders especially the Independent Electoral Commission and Nigeria Police Force therefore becomes imperative in ensuring the will of the people of Ondo state is protected barring and mitigating any incursion from political actors.

The Foundation being a leading Civil Society Organization on Election Security Management in Nigeria has deployed observers to the 18 LGAs of the state to primarily observe the conduct of security personnel that have been deployed for the purpose of the election.

According to the group in a statement by the Acting Executive Director, Peter Maduoma, stated that the CLEEN’s engagement with police hierarchy during the Foundation’s public dissemination of the Election Security Threat Assessment (ESTA) showed that the police deployed 36,000 personnel with about unarmed 15,732 personnel deployed to the 3,933 polling units in the state, while the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) deployed a total of 6225 personnel for the purpose of the governorship election in Ondo state”

 “The objective of this report is to provide an overview of either compliance/non-compliance and conduct of security personnel to the legal frameworks and ethical principles guiding the process of election in Nigeria”

“CLEEN Foundation deployed trained citizens observers across the 18 Local government Areas with a standard checklist to observe the conduct of security personnel deployed to secure the 2024 Governorship elections in Ondo state”

 “Consequently, CLEEN Foundation opened her Election Security Support Centre (ESSC) on Saturday morning where data from her citizens’ observers in the state were received and analyzed to develop this report”

 Madouma, further stated that the ESSC received incident reports and escalated to the appropriate institutions for actions.

 He noted that the findings on conduct of security personnel on election duty as mentioned above is to observe the conduct of security personnel particularly the police during the course of the election while the observation included issues concerning presence of security personnel, adequacy of security personnel, the feeling of safety and security at the polling stations and its environs.

He added that the positioning of armed security personnel and the general conduct of security personnel on election duties across the state and presence of security personnel at the various polling units observed in only Odigbo LGA, Ward 10, PU 40 security personnel were on ground.

He further added the same was reported at Akure South LGA Ward 5 PU 29. In the similar reports across other polling units in the state confirmed the presence of security personnel in the ongoing 2024 Ondo state governorship election.

However, in the early arrival of security personnel the data received showed that in the majority of the polling units observed, security personnel, especially personnel of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) got to their duty stations between 07:00 am and 07:59 am. Meanwhile in about 29.6% of the polling stations visited, security personnel were seen as early as before 07:00 hour while in theoverall, CLEEN’s observation can conclude that security personnel deployed for the election were early to their duty post.

“CLEEN Foundation observers reported that there were at least 2 security personnel present in each polling station visited while in most of the polling stations visited, there were 3 or more security personnel on duty. The data also showed that in about 70% of the polling stations, there were at least 2 security personnel present” “However, there was a particular report of absence of security personnel at one of the polling units with the data received at the CLEEN Foundation Election Security Support Centre(ESSC)

from the observers showed that all security personnel in all the polling stations wore an easily identifiable name tag which is in compliance with the code of conduct for security personnel on election duty”

“On the conduct of Security Personnel the data across the Local Government Areas in Ondo state as received by CLEEN Foundation ESSC indicate that majority of the security personnel are of good conduct. Almost all the observers deployed in the 18 LGAs reported good conduct of the security personnel. 96% of observers reported that the security personnel were approachable.

“Other observations including BVAS Functionality except the report received of BVAS malfunction at Akure north Ward 4 Polling Unit 1. The BVAS delayed in capturing the voters using facial”ES said.

The CLEEN Foundation also received a reports of vote trading ranging from 5000 to 10,000 naira per vote. The report came from observers at Okitipupa Ward 2 PU 16 and in other areas” Maduoma stated.