TMG gears up for Kogi governorship polls, trains 25 observers

The Transition Monitoring Group, (TMG), has reiterated its preparedness to provide timely and accurate information during the forthcoming governorship election in Kogi State billed for November 21 2015.

The Chairman of the group, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, who spoke in Lokoja during the launch of Quick Count, (QC) for the election, indicated that the group would provide independent and reliable information for voters, candidates, political parties and INEC.‎

Zikirullahi, who was represented by his vice chairman, Hajia Limota Gorroso Giwa, indicated that if INEC’s official results fall within TMG’s estimated range then the public, political parties and candidates would have confidence that official results reflect ballots cast at polling units.

He said the group has trained 25 observers to monitor the pre-election activities so as to report and draw the attention of the relevant organs of government to issues that may hinder the smooth conduct of the election.

He added that the QC observers would be deployed to selected polling units, which he said will be statistically drawn from the total of 2548 polling units in Kogi state, through random sampling.

The TMG boss warned that it was not the duty of the QC observers to count ballot papers, saying that they are expected to use official results as announced by INEC officials at the polling units to reach their estimation, further emphasising the need for the pre-election monitoring. According to him, election is a cycle, which requires close attention to ensure that nothing goes wrong with the election.

The group called on all political actors to engage in the competition to conduct themselves with utmost decorum by maintaining peace, saying that their campaign should be issue based.