Atiku, Obi berate INEC for 2023 General Elections ‘mess’

Camps of the Abubakar Atiku of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Obi have slammed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over its poor elections and post-elections conduct which it maintains the ongoing petitions at the Presidential Elections Petitions Court (PEPC) ‘will correct.’

Obi ‘s legal team while replying to the response petition filed at the PEPC by INEC accused the commission of taking sides with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on the issue of electronic transmission of election results via the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine to the commission’s Results Viewing (IReV) portal, instead of maintaining neutrality.

It would be recalled that INEC in its objection filed by its legal team headed Abubakar Mahmoud SAN, had disagreed with Obi’s request that the 2023 presidential election results should have been transmitted electronically through the BVAS machine to the IReV portal.

Also, INEC had disagreed with Obi that Tinubu, having not scored 25% of votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), does not qualify to be declared winner of the 2023 polls in line with Section 134 of the 1999 Constitution.

In FCT, Obi scored 281,717 votes to defeat Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar who had 90,902 and 74,199 votes, respectively (less than 25%).

However, INEC’s lawyer, Mahmoud, had told the court that “FCT has no special constitutional status over and above the other 36 states of the federation to require a candidate in the presidential election to obtain at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in the FCT before being declared winner of the presidential election.”

Meanwhile, the electoral umpire admitted that while it is true that collation officers are required to ascertain that the number of accredited voters match the number captured in the BVAS and that the votes of parties correspond with the result electronically transmitted directly from the polling units before collation of results, it’s collation officers are allowed by law to use INEC’s copy of the results from the polling unit in the event that no results have been electronically transmitted from a polling unit.

Responding, Obi slammed INEC for taking sides with the APC and Tinubu, berating the electoral for not remaining neutral in the ongoing petitions at the PEPC.

“INEC, forgetting its role as an electoral umpire, gave a notice of preliminary objection to challenge the alleged incompetence of the petition.

“The global best practices for electoral umpires in national elections is that an electoral umpire must avoid creating the impression that it has no respect for neutrality in an electoral contest between candidates,” Obi’s stated.

According to Obi, previous rulings and decisions of the Court of Appeal repeatedly charged INEC to remain neutral in electoral proceedings, adding that it amounts to ‘embarrassment’ for INEC to ‘adorn the garb of a contestant’ in an election it conducted.

Concerning the 25 percent votes from FCT not a requirement in 2023 presidential election, Obi’s team argued that the electoral umpire’s claim is ‘not true’ and that the 1999 constitution makes it mandatory, while on the issue of mode election result transmission, Obi team cited a Federal High Court judgement which held that the BVAS is “core” to the election.

“It is not true that INEC compared the results of the election with any hard copies and counter-part copies issued to Nigeria Police and the political party agents as claimed in paragraph 73 of the 1st Respondent’s (INEC) reply,” Obi’s team submitted.

Meanwhile, reacting to the just-concluded elections, Atiku’s camp has said the PEPC will correct the ‘mess’ caused by INEC.

Spokesperson of the PDP’s presidential candidate, Atiku who also urged Nigerians not to over-expectant of the new administration of Bola Tinubu, said, however, that the mess caused by INEC will be corrected by the PEPC when hearings commence.

Bwala who disclosed this in a tweet via his Twitter handle (@DanielBwala), Tuesday, said that Tinubu’s manifestoes during the 2023 general election showed that the former Lagos State governor did not have viable plans for the progress and development of Nigeria as a country, even as he described the party’s manifesto as ‘an excuse for the failures of the present Muhammadu Buhari Government.’

“When you read their manifestos, the renewed hopelessness or renewed excuses against the backdrop of present realities of dwindling revenue, high inflation rate etc, believe me there is nothing to expect from the next administration.

“The good thing is there is a pending election litigation that will provide Nigeria an opportunity to correct the mess caused by INEC,” he wrote.