THE Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure timely collation of results in the forthcoming October 10 governorship in Ondo State.

Idayat Hassan, Director of CDD, stated this on Thursday while speaking during the pre-election briefing held at Royal Birds Hotel in Akure.

Hassan noted that delayed results collation has been a recurring problem especially in riverine areas of the state.

She urged the INEC to ensure that its results viewing portal is capable of documenting results, especially from areas, which will pose a terrain problem.

The CDD boss further told the electoral body to carry out its duties as an unbiased umpire with a working strategy to mitigate the effect of partisan disposition of transport unions, including the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and the Motorcyclists Association.

“The partisan posture of these unions could pose challenges, which may create credibility and logistics problems for the entire process. Incidentally, the NURTW is the body INEC relies on for the transportation of electoral materials. This may create a problem for INEC in the area of getting materials to all voting areas in the state. CDD calls on INEC to prepare backup plans just in case there is a system failure in its logistics deployment as a result of the partisan disposition of the transport union,” Hassan said.

Commending the effort of INEC, she tasked the Commission to reciprocate the level of confidence the people of Ondo have placed in it, adding that the electoral body should provide a level-playing field.

Hassan further praised the voters for focusing on promoting an issue-based campaign and displaying a high level of maturity in the process of the election so far, adding that the effort has prevented the spread of fake news and misinformation.

“CDD observation shows that the level of the spread of fake news and misinformation in the Ondo election has been relatively low when compared to recent governorship elections in Kogi, Bayelsa and Ondo State,” she said.

This positive trend is partly so because citizens are busy discussing issues of governance. CDD hopes the people of Ondo State will put those issues in perspective as they go to cast their ballot on October 10.”