…The election was marred with several factors, including vote buying, voter suppression
The just concluded election held last Saturday 25th February 2023 has generated mixed reactions from Nigerians as many haved called for a re-run.
A coalition of Civil Society Groups (CSOs) in Delta State has joined the voices of millions both within and outside the country in condemning the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, over the shabby conduct of last Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections.
The group in a press conference said the election was marred with several factors, including vote buying, voter suppression, over voting and failure of the Bimodal Voters’ Accreditation System (BVAS).
The coalition also stated other factors that marred the election as; inability of INEC to transmit result real time through the INEC Result Verification (IREV) portal.
The group in the statements statement said: “We, the coalition of Civil Society Organizations in Delta State, wish to use this medium to passionately express our gratitude to all Nigerians especially our teaming youths and most importantly our amiable fathers and mothers, who thronged their polling units on Saturday 25th February, 2023 to exercise their civic duty, in spite of the harsh weather.
“Unfortunately, they met an election arrangement that is diametrically opposite to everything that INEC has promised the people of Nigeria.
“We therefore wish to outline and carefully analyze some fundamental observations that we believed were deliberately planned between some disgruntled INEC officials and the agents of the major political parties to compromise the election in favour of their pay master.”
The group added that: “The distribution of election materials was deliberately delayed in many polling units to suppress our voters.
“In spite of the Naira swap policy which the government claimed was intended to end the culture of vote-buying, truckloads of essential commodities was used openly, at polling units, to bribe voters was unprecedented in the history of elections in Nigeria.
“The decision of INEC to close down the IREV server might not be unconnected with the very widespread failures of the BVAS across the country. In majority of the PUs across rural Nigeria, the BVAS machine failed.
“In the entire arrangements for the 2023 general elections, nothing was more comforting to all political parties on the opposition side than the fact that election results will be transmitted electronically, in real-time, from the polling units to the IREV server.
The coalition said the very action of returning to manual transmission has completely compromised the 2023 general elections.
“Election results were intercepted and changed between PUs and Wards Collation centres, between Wards Collation centres and Local government collation centres, and between local government collation centres and state collation centres. This election is marred with numerous incidences of changing the results of the election on transit from one level to another – exactly what the electronic transmission clause of the electoral act seeks to avoid.”
It prayed INEC to thoroughly investigate all the irregularities and make necessary amend in order to restore trust and the confident of Nigerian people.
“The whole electoral process fell short of international standards, marred with gross irregularities, haphazard logistics arrangements and total deviation from the laid down rules and regulations governing the conduct of elections in Nigeria.
“To save our democracy and our country, the present election results must not be accepted by Nigerians and by all friends of Nigeria. We are therefore calling for the cancellation of the 2023 presidential election across the country. New election should be conducted as soon as possible.”
