The Akwa Ibom State Human Rights Community has adjudged the just concluded 2019 general elections as most peaceful and credible in Akwa Ibom State since the creation of the state.
The group also commended the Independent National Electoral Commission for ensuring that the votes of the people counted for the first time during elections in the state.
In a statement jointly signed by the Coordinator of the Group, Clifford Thomas, and the Secreatary, Enobong Ekot and made available to newsmen in Uyo on Monday, the group said the 2019 election was unique as the electorate voted and followed up the announced results from the polling units to ward and to collation centres.
According to the statement, “There is a consensus by civil society that in Akwa Ibom State in particular, popular citizens’ participation, which of course, is the essence of democracy, has improved tremendously.
“People never believed that their votes would ever count. Actually, it never used to count. What the politicians through INEC felt like announcing was usually the accepted results; even when reports and evidence showed that such announced results were not credible, transparent and acceptable. Such results were usually forced down the throats of the electorates. That was the narrative.
“For the first time in the State, people actually voted, got their votes counted, followed the announced results from the polling units to the ward collation centers, and continued thereon to the local government.
“This string of events which elevated the voter to a position of importance shocked the people. Wise politicians approached the voters directly, and had personal interface with them; to persuade the voters to vote for them. For the first time in Akwa Ibom State, there was a direct connects between the politicians and the voters.”
Thomas commended the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mike Igini, for starting the revolution of credible polls, adding that by discovering and exposing polling units used by politicians to rig elections in the state, the commissioner had changed the narrative of rigging elections in the state.
He said, “INEC deployed Mike Igini, to Akwa Ibom State as the Resident Electoral Commissioner. He is an Activist and practical pro-democracy exponent. And that is when the revolution started. And Akwa Ibom is no longer the same again.
“One of the first things he did was to study his new terrain and produced a master plan which included taking some incisive actions that removed the excess props that made the electoral processes in the state clumsy, incredible and ridiculous.
“Certain polling units which were used before now to inflate election results in the state were discovered, and exposed.
“He decisively ensured that the past became history, by putting the electorate, not the politician, first, in INEC’s agenda. He informed the electorates of this situation, made them to take ownership of the new process of electoral transparency, with a one-man-one vote regime.”
