REC To Politicians: Learn To Accept Defeat

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has urged politicians to always learn to accept defeat in an election rather than blaming it on the electoral umpire.

The Edo State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Obo Efanga, who spoke yesterday in Benin during a post-election review meeting with newsmen, noted that politicians only accept the outcome of an election when they are declared winners.

He said, “The only way the nation’s democracy can grow is when politicians begin to also accept defeat in an election. Our politicians, when they win elections, they begin to rejoice, but when they lose, they begin to complain and blame INEC.

“Whenever politicians win, they will say it was ‘victory for democracy and a reflection of how the people voted for them’ but when they don’t win, they will always try to find reasons to blame everyone apart from themselves.”

Effanga stressed the need for Nigerians to act rightly and criticise politicians behind electoral violence during elections; saying that is the only way to address violence in the electoral process.

“The quality of what we do is a reflection of us as a people because the people who conducted the elections were Nigerians, contesters were Nigerians, those who disrupted the elections were Nigerians, the people who shot voters during elections and the people who reported the elections were Nigerians. So, it is for us as Nigerians to decide and act the right way at all times,” he said.