The nation’s electoral process has improved over the years since the return of democracy to Nigeria in 1999.
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, made this assertion on Tuesday.
He made the assertion in a keynote address, “The Independent National Electoral Commission and The Challenges and Prospects of Leadership Recruitment for Good Governance in Nigeria’’ at the 6th Convocation Lecture of Oduduwa University (OUI) in Osun State.
“In all fairness, the commission has drastically leapt up from where it was when democratic was resurrected in 1999,” he declared.
The INEC boss also spoke on the preparedness of his commission for the 2019 election.
He said INEC was prepared to conduct an acceptable election.
“As we are approaching the general elections, the commission is more than prepared to conduct election that will be acceptable to all and sundry and the international community,” he said.
He however described vote-buying, lack of internal democracy in political parties and poor management of intra-party contests as some of the challenges facing the political system.
Yakubu identified other challenges as incendiary speech, insecurity, impunity and lack of consequences for electoral offenders.
No fewer than 200 court cases, he also disclosed, was hanging on the neck of INEC over the primaries conducted by the different political parties recently.
