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2019 ELECTIONS: We contended with 760 court cases – INEC

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2019: Why elections were declared inconclusive - Yakubu

The independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has revealed that it had to contend with more than 760 court cases during and after the 2019 general elections.

This was disclosed by INEC National Commissioner charge of Osun, Ekiti and Oyo states, Prince Solomon Soyebi, adding that the electoral body was taken to court over the internal affairs of the parties.

Soyebi, who stated this on Friday during the post-election workshop organised by INEC for stakeholders involved in the conduct of the elections in Abeokuta, Ogun State, said many parties joined the commission in suits over their internal crises.

He said: “The parties had a lot of internal wrangling, even, to the day of the elections.

“The commission went to court on issues bordering mainly on pre-election matters.

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“We were dragged to court more than 760 times.

“The commission can do very little about the desperation of the parties.

“Most of these problems we are facing are because of a lack of internal democracy.

“The management of parties is the problem we have, not the shared numbers.

“Many of the parties we have are just created for a purpose. If there is a problem somewhere, they will now domesticate themselves in one of the new parties.

“This is the responsibility of everybody, we encourage parties to make sure they play their own roles and I am sure this will improve by 2023.”

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