INEC accredits 29 observer groups for Osun governorship election

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The incumbent governor is among the 20 candidates in the election The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has cleared 29 domestic and international organizations to observe the August 9 governorship election in Osun State. This is contained in the information kit for the election released by the Commission on Monday. The domestic observer groups approved by the electoral body are 19 while 10 are foreign groups. The figure is the same with that of the Ekiti State governorship election held last June 21. Among the observer groups accredited for the Osun gubernatorial poll are Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, Nigeria Bar Association Election Working Group, Centre for Democracy and Development, Nigerian Civil Society Situation Room (Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre), CLEEN Foundation, The Forum of State Independent Electoral Commission of Nigeria (FOSIECON), NEPAD Nigeria, Independent Election Monitoring Group, and Research Initiative for Sustainable Development and Gender Awareness (RISDGA). The international observers include the UNDP/DGD,International Foundation for Electoral System (IFES), EU Delegation, British High Commission, United States Mission to Nigeria, Canadian High commission, Embassies of Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and France. Twenty parties are presenting candidates in the election in which a total of 1,407,222 voters are expected to vote. Some of the parties are the All Progressives Congress, APC, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Labour Party, LP, and the Alliance for Democracy, AD. The incumbent governor, Rauf Aregbesola, is running on the platform of the APC while a former deputy governor and senator, Iyiola Omisore, is the flag-bearer of the PDP.