The Labour Party’s (LP) Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi, made
strong accusations against the
Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC), claiming that the commission had allowed electoral fraudsters to become
leaders and had wasted the nation’s valuable time and resources.
In their final address to the Presidential Election Petitions
Court on July 23, 2023, Obi and LP issued a stern warning that unless the court
compelled INEC to perform its electoral duties with fairness, impartiality, and
independence, Nigeria’s elections would continue to be plagued by fraud.
Obi and LP alleged that INEC had abandoned its primary role as
an electoral umpire and had instead taken on the role of a candidate in the
election. They were particularly disappointed with the 5.5-page defense
presented by INEC regarding the disqualification of the second respondent,
Tinubu, which they found tragic and embarrassing.
Referencing a previous court case, PDP v. Alechenu (2019)
LPELR-49199 (CA), they pointed out that INEC had been reprimanded for playing
games with election materials and obstructing petitioners from accessing
crucial documents, even in the face of court orders. This behavior, according
to Obi, was evident in the 2023 General Election, where INEC utilized modern
technology, such as the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC
Result Viewing Portal (IReV), to conduct the election.
However, Obi accused INEC of failing to adhere to the mandatory
provisions of the Electoral Act of 2022, the INEC Regulations and Guidelines, and
the INEC Manual. Specifically, INEC had promised real-time upload and
transmission of election results from polling units to the IReV, but instead,
they uploaded blurred and inaccessible documents that lacked credibility and
transparency.
Obi argued that INEC’s claim that the collation of election
results was a manual process was false and contradictory to the Electoral Act,
which required electronic transmission to the IReV at all stages of the
election process. He contested the validity of the Federal High Court’s
determination in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1454/2022, which INEC relied on in its
final address, citing a later binding decision by the Supreme Court in Appeal
No: SC/CV/508/2023, OYETOLA v. INEC, delivered on 9th May 2023.
Moreover, despite INEC’s claim that hardcopies of forms EC8A
were used for manual collation, Obi accused the commission of providing the
petitioners with blurred, blank, and irrelevant copies of these forms, failing
to produce the authentic versions in court.
In conclusion, Obi and LP strongly condemned INEC’s actions and
urged the court to ensure that the commission fulfilled its electoral
responsibilities diligently and independently to prevent electoral fraud from
persisting in Nigeria.
