The February 25, 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections conducted across the nation by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has been described by both local and international observers, the electorate, political parties as the worst since 1999 to date,even as some civil society organisations now refer to the electoral umpire as yahoo yahoo, a gutter language for a confirmed fraudster in Nigeria
By Miracle Egbo
Professor Mahamood Yakubu, National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is in the eye of a storm. His problem is caused by the promises he made to the Nigerian public to the effect that the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System, BIVAS would upload the results of the elections at the polling units across the nation real time, which was massively observed in the breach throughout the country. Aside from that, Yakubu is alleged to have been heavily induced financially by the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC to skew the outcome of the Presidential election in favour of the ruling party.
The blatant refusal of the officials of the electoral umpire to upload the results emanating from polling units during the election real time triggered the suspicion that the Yakubu-led electoral commission might have been compromised to subvert the rules and regulations of the electoral umpire in the conduct of the election. In a live television chat conducted by the AIT television, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Anthony Ehilebo said that INEC violated the rules and regulations set by itself which is that results at the polling units would be transmitted real time to the commission’s portal. According to Ehilabo, the confidence of the electorate was eroded by the insistence of the electoral umpire not upload the results as at when due. Ehilabo’s position on the outcome of the Presidential and National Assembly results is the position of the majority of the electorate across the nooks and crannies of the country.
YIAGA Africa, a civil society group in a widely attended world press conference said that the election umpire had failed woeful in the discharge of its duty in the 2023 presidential election held across the country. According to Samuel Itodo, the Executive Director of YIAGA Africa, the performance of the electoral umpire has come short of transparency, inclusiveness, fair, credible and free election. “We are not satisfied with the conduct of the presidential election conducted in February 25, 2023 because it failed to reflect the wishes and aspirations of the electorate that came in millions to perform their civic duties. It should be on record that reports from our staffers who monitored the election in all the polling units across the nation reported that many voters were disenfranchised by the electoral umpire for the lack of the basic materials like stamp and ballot papers. INEC should as a matter of urgency review the technical glitch that hampered the uploading of the results real time”.
What is common in the just concluded Presidential and National Assembly election, in the estimation of the various election observers is that the exercise was fraught with inconsistency, deceit and disenfranchising of voters which was the common signature replicated in all the states of the Federation. Information at the disposal of this medium revealed that some of the sitting governors on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC and its PDP counterpart were on videos that have gone viral on social media showing how they literally forced the electoral officials to alter the mandate given by the electorate at the poll. For instance, in Rivers State, the governor, Nyesom Wike was alleged to have stormed the collation centre to order the collation officer to write the results in favour of his preferred candidate in the election. In Lagos State, thugs allegedly sponsored by the president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to harass and intimidate voters from other ethnic nationalities that if they did not vote for Tinubu they would be killed, and they made good their promise by maiming and killing voters in Lagos.
Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of Action Alliance, AA, said that in the first place there was no election because INEC failed to follow the rules and regulations it created for the parties to follow. He said that INEC has deceived Nigerians so much that the time is ripe now for the revolution which he has been preaching before now. According to him, if nothing is done, the government of the day would continue to deceive the populace in ways that will perpetually make them slaves in their country. He said that results of the exercise are not acceptable to him but he is not going to court because he might not get justice but judgment at the end of the day. He also said that it was absurd to congratulate the claimed winner on a shambolic election that has shown that the electoral umpire was a fraud.
Sheik Gunmi, a fiery Muslim cleric said that the Federal Government should be careful on how it is going to handle the case brought against INEC at the law court. He said the way it is handled would determine the next action of the electorate.
“The legitimacy of a government can only be acquired when the election process is credible and transparent. When such is not in place, the government will run as a political imposition by a few privileged cabals.
“I implore the opposition parties to go to the Supreme Court to re-establish the supremacy of law and to teach our younger generation the value of resolving disputes through legal means rather than violence.
“I advise that people should let the entire litigation process run its course because it has great deal of importance for our national health. I think the INEC failed to follow its guidelines in conducting last week’s election”.
Michael Aondoakaa, former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, said that the six states that went to court to call for the cancellation of the results have the legal right to do so. He said for INEC not to follow the rules and regulations it created, it would be difficult for anybody to fault that in the law court because the electoral body violated its own guidelines in the conduct of the election. He said that INEC from the views of the populace failed the nation by not delivering what it promised the electorate it was going to do during the election which it observed in breach.
In Surulere, an outskirt of Lagos state, a particular woman was stabbed several times by thugs allegedly abetted and aided by officials of the ruling APC in the state. The woman that was stabbed after receiving treatment defied all odds to come and vote for her preferred candidate at the poll. In the same vein, Chioma Akpota, a popular actress was harassed in her polling unit by the same thugs empowered, allegedly though, thereby scaring away other prospective voters in the area. As at the time of filing this report, the street urchins that attacked Akpota had not been arrested by the security agents deployed to secure and protect the environs during and after the poll. The stoic resistance of the stabbed woman is metaphoric of the electorate determination to brave all odds to come out and vote at the poll. Most electorate had concluded that the National Chairman of INEC, Yakubu in assuring the electorate that their votes would count, played a fast one on them like the yahoo yahoo boys on their various victims. According to a source, the electoral umpire is a deceit that should not be allowed to happen in the country, adding that the conduct of the electoral umpire had eroded the confidence of the electorate in future elections, insisting that an average INEC official is now viewed, especially by the youths, as the enemy of the society, and would be treated like that.
In Oshodi area of Lagos State, street urchin kingpin, MC oluomo was seen in a viral video where he was chasing voters whom he said were voting the Labour Party presidential candidate at the poll, Peter Obi, threatening to go after their means of livelihood should Obi emerge as the President of the country. The street urchins’ activity in Lagos appeared to be the signature of what transpired at various polling units scattered all over the country at the last week’s Presidential and National Assembly election in the country.
Afenifere, the socio-cultural group of Yoruba, and other socio-cultural groups such as the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, MIDDLE-BELT Forum and some notable Nigerians have called on INEC to as a matter of urgency restore the mandate of the people by cancelling the results in all the areas that BIVAS was not used in the election. In a statement credited to these socio-cultural groups, they insisted that INEC should not create crisis that may end the cooperate existence of the country, therefore, according to them, INEC should do the needful by cancelling the results especially in the areas that the BIVAS did not work as a way of calming the nerves of the electorate who legitimately believe that their mandate was stolen by the electoral umpire and some politicians in the country. According to the socio-cultural groups, the leaders of the country should not plunge IT into crisis by pretending that nothing would happen, as tension that is building up might turn to another thing if it is not arrested on time.
Information at the disposal of Tentacle revealed that youths are secretly mobilsing for social uprising should the judiciary that everybody is looking up to fails to uphold the mandate as given to their preferred candidate, Obi of the LP. According to the information, youths livid with anger that for the first time they are coming out to vote, the electoral umpire had denied them their mandate, and they are going to use every legal means possible to reclaim the mandate that they have given to their preferred candidate at the poll.
The Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC has called on INEC to do the needful and reverse itself on the fraudulent results it produced so as not to push the teeming Nigerians youths to the wall because the repercussion would be devastating. Comrade Joseph Ajaero, NLC president warned that the electorate should not be taken for granted especially the youths because they came out in large number to choose the candidate they like but the results so far announced are at variance with the candidate they massively voted for at the poll. Ajaero said that the electorates are waiting patiently to see how the impending court case would be determined in a matter of weeks.
While alerting the nation on the poor performance of the electoral umpire, Nma Odi, a member of the civil society groups that monitored the election said that the attitude of INEC in the conduct of the election is in sync with the modus operandi of the yahoo yahoo boys in town who defraud their victims just as the electoral umpire had done to the Nigerian voters in the just concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections across the nation. Odi’s stand in this regard appears to have resonated with the electorate who participated in the exercise as evidenced in pockets of protests across the nation demanding for their mandate.
It was gathered that the INEC National Chairman, Yakubu is alleged to have been compromised by politicians who are desperate to win at all costs. This might have found expression in the letter written by former President Olusegun Obasanjo where he alleged that money exchanged hand to change the mandate of the people as shown in the just concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections. Obasanjo in the said letter said that blood money collected to subvert the will of the people will hunt the cooperate existence of the country. In the letter, the former President called on INEC to outrightly cancel elections in all the places that BIVAS was not used and conduct a fresh election. He said that the shambolic exercise called election on February 25, 2023 cannot stand the test of democratic ideals, calling on President Mohammed Buhari to prevail on the INEC chairman to respect the will of the people so as not to plunge the country into crisis that might cause major damage to the country’s existence.
In the same vein, the Chairman of the Presidential Peace Committee, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (retd) equally in his own homily advised the electoral umpire to listen to the grievances of the electorate as it affects the conduct of the Presidential and National Assembly poll, and do the needful for the sake of peace. Abubakar in his homily said that for peace to reign the electoral umpire must listen to the yearnings of the electorate and follow the rules and regulation which the umpire set for itself for peace to reign in the country.
Meanwhile, the presidential candidate of LP, Obi and his PDP counterpart, Atiku have taken the case to the Appeal Court to challenge the outcome of the result, and the court has granted them exparte motion to go ahead with the case of interrogating INEC on the way and manner it conducted the election exercise. In the same vein, Akwa Ibom, Sokoto, Edo, Adamawa and Delta States have dragged the Federal Government and INEC to the Supreme Court to challenge the outcome of the February 25, 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections. The states prayed the Supreme Court to nullify the election as conducted by the electoral body on February 25, 2023.
The condemnation that trails the conduct of the February 25, 2023 Presidential and National Assembly poll has earned the electoral body the sobriquet of a yahoo yahoo umpire because at different fora INEC assured the electorate that it was going to upload the results to its portal real time as stipulated in the Electoral Act 2022 as amended which it breached with impunity. For the electoral umpire to renege on the promise it made to the general public, the masses have decided to tar them with the brush of the yahoo yahoo boys who are on the prowl for victims. The victims this time around are the electorate who were upbeat in coming out to vote for their candidate of choice only to be told that same candidate cannot be allowed to rule.
More irritating is the fact that INEC would not explain to Nigerians why it chose to collate election manually against the provisions of the Electoral Act. Also INEC partially uploaded results of the National Assembly election held the same day with that of the presidential. Amid a walkout by a group of party agents that participated in the election as protest against the outlawed manual collation, the INEC chairman stubbornly went ahead to announce Tinubu the winner of the presidential election in spite of the angry masses
Meanwhile, reactions have begun to trail what would constitute the major features of Tinubu presidency. Critical observers are united in their assessment report of three major issues that would dominate Tinubu rulership of Nigeria. They identified these issues to include one, Nigeria will become a narcotics infested country where the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) may be stripped of its biting strength while drug barons will have field day to turn Nigerian youths into drug addicts. Two, they also argued that corruption would tear the fabrics of Nigeria to shreds as Tinubu’s hangers on might turn the national treasury into private pockets. Three, analysts insist that insecurity will be elevated beyond what it has been in president Buhari administration where bandits and terrorists and kidnappers for ransom will make life unbearable for Nigerians across the nation.-
