From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
A coalition of 18 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on Tuesday protested at the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), demanding the resignation and or outright sack of the Commission’s chairman, Mahmood Yakubu.
The Coalition hinged their demand for Yakubu’s resignation on the ignominious role he played in the February 25 presidential election.
Numbering hundreds the protesters had halted activities at the headquarters of the electoral commission in a sting operation that lasted for few minutes.
The Coalition that made up the 18 CSOs include; Civil Society Forum of Nigeria, Nigeria Youth Development Forum, Democratic Youth Initiative, Forum for Social Justice, Movement for the Development of Democracy and Safeguard Nigeria Movement.
Others are Alliance for People’s Welfare, Forward Nigeria Movement, Human Right Crusaders, Defenders of Democracy, Democratic Rights Assembly and Voter’s Rights Assembly.
The protesters carry posters with various inscriptions like; ‘Mahmood who are you working for?, ‘305bn yet inefficiency reigns in INEC’, Nigerians demand cancellation of INEC results now’, ‘we reject INEC’s appropriation of results to APC’, ‘Nigerians reject 2023 February election’, ‘Yakubu must go now’, ‘make our votes count’, ‘Yakubu Mahmood must resign or be sack’, ‘for a peaceful Nigeria, Yakubu Mahmood was bias’, among others.
Titled; ‘2023 election is a sham, Nigerians reject manipulated results, Isiaku Nathaniel Balogun, Head of Coalition and Dada Olayinka Olabode, the convener, claimed that Yakubu failed Nigerians.
“Before February 25, 2023, Nigqerian’s had high hopes that the conduct of the election was going to be a standard for the rest of Africa. That hope was dashed by INEC, the very electoral body saddled with the responsibility of conducting free, fair and transparent election.
“Prior to the election, INEC had promised that their staff are well trained, motivated and phycologically prepared for the task and importantly assured Nigerians that election results would be transmitted electronically to their server from the polling units across the 176, 846 available. “INEC claimed the BVAS technology was going to be effectively deployed to forestall rigging and over voting. These were major pillar upon which Nigerians anchored their excitement and belief in the process of electing their leaders.
“However, events during and after the elections would later prove that INEC performed below expectations and pulled the wool over the eyes of Nigerians. Over 93.5 million Nigerians were registered for the February 2023 election, only 23 per cent of the total figure were able to vote. This is lower than previous elections.
“Late distribution of election materials. While many had hoped to maximally utilize the use of BVAS technology for easy accreditation and eventual voting thereby increasing participation, the BVAS technology was either deployed lately or bypassed in many polling units thereby disenfranching a large majority. In many other areas, people who had arrived polling units ahead of time couldn’t enjoy voting rights due to non funtionality and or inexperienced operation of the BVAS by largely untrained ad-hoc staff,” the coalition noted.
Chronicling some other sins he committed they said: “In places BVAS worked efficiently, there were reported cases of over voting in many centres leading to denial of voter’s rights. Many votes didn’t count.
“Large scale violence orchestrated by political thugs supported by some desperate candidates who knew it was impossible for them to win free and fair elections thereby leading to cancellation of results.
“Non transmission of results from polling units to the INEC server and the non functionality of the Irev where Nigerians would have had opportunity to monitor results real time and accurately.
“In view of above, it is obvious that INEC deceived Nigerians into believing it was ready for the election whereas the Commission was ill prepared despite over N300 billion of tax payers money the Commission received to conduct the elections.
“Possible manipulation of election results at the polling units due to non transmission in real time. It is safe therefore to conclude that INEC not only conducted the worst election so far in Nigeria’s history but blatantly took the people for a ride. INEC also flagrantly disobeyed its own rules and regulations and disregarded the provisions of the Electoral Act,” he said.