Executive Director of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), Mr. Emmanuel Bombande has chastised the Electoral Commission for some of the shortcomings which been experienced in the 2012 election process.

"I want to be one of the people who begin to say that with all our experiences and having a lot of respect for any challenges that may have occurred, it is still not acceptable that in our capital city some polling stations can only begin to vote at 10’ o clock”.

“I don’t want to sound too critical of the EC but from where we have reached, let us agree that we cannot say we will start voting at 7 AM and have some polling stations voting at 10. Let us not celebrate complacency but do more so that we don’t come back and say there were a few hitches; hitches that are clearly avoidable,” he stated.

Mr Bombande was however quick to indicate that despite the hitches, he believes that the Electoral Commission has been thorough with preparations for the 2012 elections.

“If you look at it from all circles; from the media, to the security and the EC itself, I think that preparations for 2012 have been thorough,” he said.

“We should be optimistic because there is going to be an impact from the day that will last to the evening when the results come out and if we are able to end the day without any major incident, I’m optimistic that that flow will go into the evening”.