Ghana Learnt From Nigeria How To Conduct Elections – Mahmood Yakubu

Posted by Nwa Diokpa Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria Monday, December 9th, 2024

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has stated that Ghana’s decision to decentralise its electoral system was a system copied from Nigeria which resulted in a seamless election result announcement.

The INEC chief stated this as he heaped praises on the smooth conduct of the General Election in Ghana that produced the opposition candidate, John Mahama in the presidential election.

The African Examiner writes that Yakubu was part of the observer team in Ghana and observed how constituency-level officers in Ghana were able to announce results which led to the easy computation of the results which according to him was copied from Nigeria.

He said: “The second thing for me is the lesson that Ghana also learned from Nigeria in the area of managing constituency election results. Until the last election in Ghana, all results came to the Electoral Commission’s headquarters in Accra, both parliamentary and presidential.

“Although Ghana is not a federal system, they learned from Nigeria, where you have returning officers who announce results for parliamentary elections in various constituencies around the country. Only the presidential election results come to Accra.

“In Nigeria, this is what we have done, and they borrowed a leaf from us, and this is the second time they are implementing that. That is why, as you can see, the declaration of the presidential election result was a lot faster than it used to be in the past.”

Yakubu also talked about the political stability in Ghana as he pointed out the consistency of its political party structures and also voter loyalty.

He added: “Rarely in Ghana do you see people moving from one party to another with every general election. So, that is important.

“It provides stability. It also provides their supporters with stability. So, there are people who have supported political parties for many years. Whether the party is in power or in opposition, they stick to the political party.”