Marred 2023 Elections in Nigeria - Chikeluba

The elections in Nigeria since 1999, has always been characterized by ignoble acts of violence, thuggery and undue interference with the Rights of the people to truly decide who to govern them.

From the time of Professor Maurice Iwu as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman which was characterized by brazen acts of impunity to the time of Prof. Attahiru Jega, where a significant improvement in the credibility of INEC was seen, to the incumbent Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, whose most recent outing has been nothing short of abysmal, the story has been familiar to the electorates.

The recent concluded Presidential election in Nigeria is nothing to write home about. This election easily ranks as the worst that Nigerians have seen so far, largely because, with the passage of time from the inception of INEC prior to 1999 election, reformations both in logistics, human factors and laws have been put in place to ensure increased credibility of polls. The most recent of such reform is the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), to checkmate double/Multiple voting, along with the new formular of live transmission of results directly from the polling unit to the INEC website for transparency of result viewing, yet with all these, the result didn't match up to expectation.

It's also good to note that this election  energized the youth population,  due to the impact of the Obidient movement, a majorly online revolution in support of the candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi.

The failure of INEC adhoc polling unit staff to arrive the venue for polls on time in apparently most places began scraping credibility off, from the exercise. There are very well documented visual evidences of places where thuggery, ballot box snatching and poll disruptions were carried out by politicians in connivance with security agencies, resulting in the disenfranchisement of the electorates in such regions.

Such places, it was expected that an unbiased umpire would cancel declared results from there, and thereafter repeat the process. However contrary to expectations, mutilated and falsified results were admitted as can be publicly verified from the INEC result website.

An unbiased umpire shouldn't be pressurized to ensure that returned results from polling units were scrutinized for authenticity before the results are collated and subsequently announced, if INEC had done so, the credibility of the whole process would have been upheld.

It's also good to note that the countenance of the INEC chairman during the national collation of results didn't show a man who was playing a patriotic role, the whole exercise seemed like a written script, given to the electoral body to deliver. 


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