The much-awaited 2023 presidential election has come but has failed to go because of inexplicable delays and shoddy performance by INEC. I particularly looked forward to 25th February, 2023 because I had hoped it was going to be a date that public officers would begin to do things right and brighten our collective sense of patriotism. It was an election that took at least four good years to plan and consumed a lot of tax payers’ money in the process. INEC got all it asked for throughout the four years because the Nigerian government and people did not want to hear excuses and entertain any failures from them. The implementation of the election alone set Nigeria back by over N300billion, so nobody expected that INEC would be this irresponsible to subvert the same democracy that it was statutorily mandated to referee, guide and nurture. The 2022 Electoral Act held high hopes because of the provisions for Electronic Transmission of the VOTES CAST AT POLLING UNITS THUS MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR MANIPULATIONS WHICH NORMALLY TAKE PLACE AT THE COLLATION CENTERS. The major allure of the 2023 elections is the introduction and use of BVAS, ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION OF RESULTS AT POLLING STATIONS and THE IREV PORTAL FOR ONLINE VIEWING OF RESULTS BY NIGERIANS. These are innovations designed to strengthen democracy and make it difficult for anybody to manipulate and tamper with the people’s mandates.
I read the public notice from INEC and signed by one of its national commissioners, Mr Festus Okoye explaining why the Commission failed to directly transmit the results from polling units to the Irev portal as statutorily provided. The explanation was as unconvincing as it was tardy. The Commission knew the difference between an off-season election and a national election. A national election is more important than an off-season election. The Commission knew that Nigeria is made up of thirty-six states and the federal capital territory. This fact was there and well known to INEC. It is incumbent on INEC to strengthen its IT infrastructure backbone to take on the traffic expected in a national election involving the whole country. INEC had earlier told Nigerians that over eighty-four million PVCs had been collected, so it cannot say that it was not aware of the enormity of the task confronting it. The political parties should not suffer detriment and consequences because of INEC gross incompetence in this regard. A portal that readily uploaded results of Senatorial and House of Representatives elections but freezes and fails to upload only the results of the presidential election cannot be said to have crashed. What happened was internal sabotage by INEC. A portal which crashes as a result of high traffic must have taken some traffic before a crash can occur. A computer glitch cannot affect only the results of the presidential election leaving the other two elections conducted at the same place and time. Therefore, what Mr. Festus Okoye told the world was a Cock and Bull story. It is very unfortunate that Festus Okoye, whom until now, I held in high esteem, would involve himself in this subversion of democracy. INEC assured the nation that it was ready for the election. It never told the country that it was having problems with the I-rev or any of its portals. It had postponed previous elections and nobody challenged it. It fixed the election dates by itself and for it to now give useless excuses for failure to execute its most important election according to the enabling law is unacceptable. Today is 28th of February, 2023 and most of the results have not been uploaded and INEC is busy announcing results that cannot be independently verified. This is not acceptable.
The fundamental difference between the 2022 Electoral Act and the former 2010 Electoral Act is the provision in the new Act for the electronic transmission of the results from the polling units (RAW RESULTS) direct to the INEC PORTAL. If INEC made it impossible for the results to be uploaded online real-time as provided, it means that a fundamental BREACH OF THE 2022 ELECTORAL AND THE SUPPORTING RULES AND REGULATIONS has occurred. The issue of the powers of the INEC Chairman to REVIEW, LISTEN TO OBJECTIONS, ALLOW COLLATION OF RESULTS, ANNOUNCE RESULTS OF THE ELECTION IN ANY STATE does not even arise because THOSE THRESHOLDS HAVE NOT BEEN REACHED. Let us be clear that it is INEC that deliberately MESSED UP THE PROCESS AND WASTED TAX PAYERS’ MONEY. It is a shame!!!! There should be punishment for bad and irresponsible behaviors especially the type that INEC is guilty of. This open show of shame by INEC and its officers in subverting democracy that they are supposed to husband is unacceptable, condemnable and should be punished. When INEC and its officers are directly involved in VOTE ALLOCATION AND RESULTS MANIPULATION, it is a sin against humanity and a betrayal of the trust of Nigerians too heavy to bear that no REMEDIATION CAN CURE IT. For example, there are many infractions of the electoral Act across the country which is masterminded by INEC aimed at suppressing the mandate of the voters as represented in the votes cast at the polling units. It is obvious that the 2023 presidential election was conducted in accordance with the 2010 electoral Act and not the extant 2022 electoral Act as claimed by INEC because all the distinguishing features of the 2022 electoral act were not applied by INEC. Therefore, I insist that INEC must do the needful because what it did and called the 2023 presidential election was VOID AB INNITIO. There are four major political parties in Nigeria and three of them are united in calling for the cancellation of the presidential election because INEC breached important sections of the 2022 electoral act and its Chairman is arrogantly and ignominiously dismissive of their very serious allegations against the election management body, because he is egged by unserious minor political parties and the major political party the Commission is being accused of illegally aiding.
The failure of the current election should be blamed squarely on INEC and nobody else because they pocketed much of the money budgeted for the election and allocated votes to the ruling party as a way of covering up their perfidy. The money was shared among all the staff of INEC from head to bottom and that explains why they are subverting the process in unison as all were compromised. INEC has now become where unscrupulous people go to make illegitimate money instead of being the conscience of the nation. The INEC and its officers have decided to pander to the allure and power of money both from the amount budgeted for its work and bribes collected from desperate politicians rather than their consciences and integrities. The word SHALL in law means mandatory and does not give room for DISCRETION. The word SHALL was used to emphasize the importance of the ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION OF RESULTS by INEC starting from the polling units to collation Centers across the Country. That process should be INTERROGATED and failure at any point NULLIFIES the whole exercise. The federal government should recover the money collected by INEC because they have failed to do the job for which the money was given. I JOIN MY VOICE WITH THE PDP, LABOUR PARTY, NNPP and ADC TO DEMAND THE COMPLETE CANCELLATION OF THE EXERCISE BECAUSE THE WHOLE THING IS A FARCE. For the INEC Chairman to insist on continuing with the national collation in the light these very SERIOUS observations shows that he is not a man of honor. To insist that he would not voluntarily resign his position in the light of his obvious failure to deliver a free and fair election to Nigerians makes him a typical Nigerian who would never resign his position in spite of many shortcomings unless sacked and forced out in disgrace.
This is the twenty-fourth year of this republic and we have tolerated the underwhelming performance of the electoral umpires this long with the hope that they would change for the better. It is now obvious that rather than improve on previous performance, they have continued to post MEDIOCRE PERFORMANCES. This particular one is unacceptable; INEC cannot continue to take Nigerians for a ride. For example, the result (figures) which obtained from President Buhari’s polling unit in Katsina in the 2019 presidential election is the same as the figures listed in 2023 for both the APC and PDP. This curious coincidence would have been avoided if the results had been transmitted direct from the polling unit to the INEC portal as mandated by law. The Ekiti state result is also problematic because what was announced by INEC was uploaded on the 20th February for an election that took place on 25thFebruary, 2023, a clear five-day difference. What further evidence of in-house manipulation by INEC do you require? In Lagos state, it took the courage and sharp intervention of a Lady before the Labour Party could be credited back with the over fifty-five thousand votes which they scored in Amuwo Odofin local government area where the ‘COLLATED RESULT’ had earlier given them about twenty thousand votes. This situation was widespread in not just Lagos state but throughout the country. INEC is the MAJOR CULPRIT in all these MALPRACTICES. Most of the Residents Electoral Commissioners behaved like agents of the ruling party and not electoral umpires they are supposed to be. They behaved like people who had a mandate to deliver APC at all costs. Their biases were open, palpable and undisguised. INEC held and superintended over many election security meetings prior to the elections. What came out of those Security meetings? SITTING ALLOWANCES?
There were many security agents deployed to the states to ensure adequate security during the elections. They came from the different security agencies in the country namely; the Army, the Navy, the Airforce, the Police, the Road Safety and Civil Defence. Some of them even did the SHOW OF FORCE to announce their presence. On Election Day, POLITICAL THUGS AND TOUTS had a field day and the presence of the security forces could not be felt. They could not protect the hapless voters who were HEAVILY ASSAULTED AND SERIOUSLY WOUNDED. BALLOT BOXES were snatched, destroyed and voting frustrated in many places without the intervention of the security agents. Where they did, they appeared to be AIDING AND ABETTING the enemies of democracy. VOTERS WILLS were freely subverted by FAVORED GOVERNORS AND POLITICAL LEADERS while INEC was obviously complicit and the security agents looked on as if restrained from doing what was right. Now INEC is not ashamed to announce FAKE RESULTS and the federal government will use the security agencies to enforce the IMPOSITION such that the security agencies no longer PROTECT DEMOCRACY but rather they are eager to PROTECT CIVILIAN DICTATORSHIP AND AUTOCRACY. It is a tragedy, it is pitiful, it is shameful. It is now obvious that all those THREATS, WARNINGS AND ASSURANCES ON FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS were empty and only meant to deceive and make people lower their guards. It only meant that the AUTHORITIES do not love the people. But what have the people done to deserve this kind of treatment?
I may have my preferred candidate but the WILL of the people must be allowed to prevail. After all, VOX POPULI VOX DEI meaning that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Therefore, no matter who I support, whoever the people choose is whom I will submit to but the WINNER MUST WIN FAIR AND SQUARE not by FRAUD. When I hear the news reports that a grandstanding INEC Chairman is boasting that he would not step aside in spite of the mess he has put this country in, I shudder at the shameless character that would be making that kind of insensitive statement. The subversion of the DUE PROCESS in whole system of election management in the 2023 presidential election was committed by INEC and its Chairman does find it serious enough to warrant his resignation? I shudder. Asking aggrieved parties to seek redress in court is unacceptable because that is not what INEC agreed with Nigerians and it is a ploy to shift ACCOUNTABILITY for their treasonable behavior on this election to another party. IF ANY THIEF IS ALWAYS ASKING HIS VICTIMS TO GO TO THE COURT, JUST KNOW THAT EITHER HIS ELDER OR JUNIOR BROTHER IS THE JUDGE. Asking aggrieved parties to go to court where you know you would use State money to buy your way through is simply unacceptable. There is no difference between what this INEC did and what the one led by Professor Maurice Iwu did to Nigerians in the 2007 elections. There must be a stop to this kind of perfidy and it should start with this. The process is more important than the outcome and strictly following the law leads to unimpeachable results. This is what should apply now.
- Godson O. Moneke, a quantity surveyor, economist, sociologist, administrator and sociopolitical advocate wrote from Abuja. Readers are permitted to share.
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