Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 elections has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of deceiving Nigerians following a report the electoral agency released on Friday.
INEC stated in its 526-page report on the 2023 elections, which was publicly released before the election’s first anniversary, why the IREV failed to upload the presidential results despite the smooth operation of the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS).
The commission ascribed the challenge to technical difficulties, which were eventually fixed and had no effect on the elections’ credibility.
Obi, speaking through Dr. Yunusa Tanko, chief spokesperson for the Obi-Datti Campaign Committee, branded the study as “medicine after death.”
“I think the INEC report is medicine after death. The truth about it is that if I didn’t mean that INEC deals with this issue as it happened during the election, possibly Nigerians will have believed and trusted this particular report,” Tanko told Daily Trust newspaper.
“But here we are, the report of the INEC which signifies that the IREV refused to function or been uploaded during the election is false. Because three elections happened on that day, the Federal House of Representatives, and the Senate, and the result was uploaded and there was no issue.
“Why must there be an issue as regards the presidential election? So totally for us is deceit, disdain for the people and is trying to promote an indecency,” Peter Obi’s spokesperson said.
“It is documented and everybody saw it. But then this is the same INEC who went again to the Supreme Court citing that they had the authority to collate the result manually and it was stamped on authority on illegality by our judiciary.
“And you want to convince me that that particular issue of glitch was not done deliberately? The truth is that nobody was arrested. Somebody ought to have been arrested who has been saddled with that responsibility.
He noted that “If he is saddled with the responsibility, he must be held responsible and account for why the glitches occur.
“And even if there was a glitch, it’s just like your network taking off. It shouldn’t take up to a whole day. A few seconds it is off, three seconds it is back. Why was the server not back or why was the glitch not resolved?
“So for me and many of us, this is unacceptable. The report is deceitful to the Nigerian people. Our electoral Act and electoral law must be revisited to give clarity as regards the process of our election.
“We don’t want to give any lacuna to any of our election process and give room for the judiciary only to decide who wins the election. Election should be done and dusted at the polling units,” he said.
