INEC RETURNS TO DRAWING BOARD AND WILL HOLD GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION TEST ON SATURDAY

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By Adeniyi Onaara

The outcome of the presidential election in 2023 sparked significant controversy. GIFT HABIB writes about the governorship postponement and states Polls in the Houses of Assembly, party reactions, and the Independent National Electoral Commission’s readiness for Saturday’s elections

The beautiful bride days before the presidential election, the Independent National Electoral Commission, has suddenly become the fall guy in the aftermath of the elections on February 25, 2023.

Many people who previously praised the commission’s election preparations have thrown bricks of various shades and colors at the electoral body.

People were also excited because the election was not postponed for the first time in the previous three presidential election cycles. It will be recalled that the presidential poll was postponed in 2015 to allow security forces to clear some areas under the siege of Boko Haram in the North East, while in 2019, the poll was postponed due to logistics issues.

According to the commission, Tinubu won with 8.8 million votes, while Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi received 6.9 million and 6.1 million votes, respectively.

Atiku and his opponent, Obi, refused to accept defeat, vowing to fight for their mandate in court.

At separate press conferences on March 2, the two candidates rejected Tinubu’s gesture of reconciliation after he was declared the winner of the election on Wednesday and asked them to support him in the task of building the nation.

According to the Peoples Democratic Party, the presidential election’s integrity has been jeopardized.

Debo Ologunagba, a PDP spokesperson, claimed that some of the results were “manipulated.”

It accused INEC of deliberate refusal to upload all election results from polling units to the result viewing portal.

In the same vein, the Labour Party presidential candidate vowed to challenge the result of the election in court, saying he, rather than Tinubu, won the election.

He stated “It is a clear deviation from the electoral rules and guidelines as we were promised and did not meet the minimum criteria of a free, transparent, credible and fair election devoid of voter intimidation and suppression, and late commencement of voting in some specific states.

Also, the New Nigeria Peoples Party described the process of collating and presenting presidential election results by INEC as a “sham.”

The spokesperson for the NNPP Presidential Campaign Council, Ladipo Johnson, said “It was a sham. There was systemic rigging. We had an illegible logo in the ballot papers. The logo was illegible to the people.”

Expressing their grievances, both presidential candidates requested the Presidential Election Court in the Federal Capital Territory allow them to inspect materials used for the February 25 election.

Their request was contained in two ex-parte motions they filed at the PEC secretariat at the Court of Appeal, Abuja.

On March 3, the Court of Appeal granted a request of Abubakar and Obi, to inspect documents used for the conduct of the recent presidential election in the country.

The permission was a sequel to two separate ex-parte applications filed by Atiku and Obi, who came second and third, respectively, in the presidential election won by Tinubu.

But INEC requested the Appeal Court vary the permission earlier granted to the PDP and Labour Party to inspect materials used by the commission in the conduct of the February 25 presidential election.

The request was a sequel to INEC’s plans to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System used for the presidential and National Assembly elections.

INEC said the request was predicated on the need to reconfigure the BVAS used in the presidential election before deploying them for the March 11 governorship and state Houses of Assembly polls.

However, on March 8, the PEC granted the request of INEC to reconfigure the BVAS it used for the presidential election.

In a unanimous decision by a three-member panel of justices, the court held that preventing the electoral umpire from reconfiguring the BVAS would adversely affect the forthcoming governorship and State Assembly elections.

It dismissed objections by the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Mr. Obi, against the request.

According to the court, allowing Obi and his party’s objections would amount to “tying the hands of the respondent, INEC.”

more details shortly……..