The rigging of the 2019 and 2023 presidential elections by the (In) Dependent National Electoral Commission was massive, and was done in broad daylight to irritate citizens with conscience. The two elections’ rigging was shamelessly supervised by the insensitive Mahmud Yakubu, who by that act robbed Nigeria of the two most sought-after leaders in the country – Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi.
In 2019 INEC deployed technology partially to collate the presidential election results. When it found out that Atiku won the election, the partial umpire ignored the results on its Website, which indicated that Atiku won the election, and announced a manually collated result which gave the incumbent Muhammadu Buhari victory to the chagrin of the helpless electorate. INEC was to tell the courts that the results on its Website were not tenable because it lacked legal backing to announce results from the site.
Before now, the Abubakar Bukola Saraki-led National Assembly had amended the Electoral Act to accommodate collation on the INEC website, but Buhari had declined his assent.
In 2023 the Electoral Act had the provision to accommodate the use INEC’s BVAS and IReV, but with the option for INEC to decide whether to deploy electronic devices fully or not. After its guidelines specified the compulsory deployment of the two electronic devices, INEC turned round to jettison the devices during the presidential election, the rest remains a ruinous history staring us in the face today.
As the 2027 presidential election approaches faster, the front runners for the number one citizen’s office, Atiku and Obi, have been doing other things with their followers, but inexplicably ignoring the emphasis on the use of electronic devices for the next presidential election. This is quite worrisome.
The Northern Youth Democratic Movement (NYDM), has however, vowed that there would be dire consequences should the INEC tamper with the presidential election results in 2027. We are watching as to how Atiku and Obi can win in the election when INEC is still under the full influence of the presidency.
These are some of the issues raised in this week’s edition. Enjoy it!
