2023 Presidential election: Atiku, Obi and the search for “stolen” mandate

By Vivian Okejeme Abuja

Long before the February 25 Presidential election, there have been fears of having free, fair and credible polls among Nigerians. A free, fair and credible polls which will engender quality representation and good governance.

Presently, Nigerians are divided over the conduct of the elections. While some believe the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, did a good job with the way the election was conducted and a winner declared, others see the election as a sham and an embarrassment to the country before the international community.

Before the election, INEC had promised Nigerians that it will do its best to give Nigerians credible polls. The electoral body promised to end electoral malpractices and rigging during the election.

But just as it is in past elections, it was characterized by allegations of thuggery, rigging and all forms of electoral malpractices. Infact, a section of the foreign mission observers described the election as everything but free and fair.

Four days after the election was conducted, precisely on March 1, 2023, INEC, through its Chairman, Prof Mahmud Yakubu, who served as the chief collation officer of the federation, in the dead of the night declared Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), winner of the election with 8,794,726 votes, ahead of Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who polled 6,984,520 votes, and Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), who secured 6,101,533 votes.

Shortly after the election was conducted and results announced, political parties and their candidates have been pointing accusing fingers at one another.

Candidates of the PDP and that of LP, Abubakar and Obi, respectively, indicated interest to approach the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, to challenge the declaration of Tinubu, as the president-elect.

At the moment, motions and countermotions are being filed in court by Abubakar, Obi, Tinubu and INEC in preparation for the tribunal’s sitting.

Last week, the tribunal granted request by Abubakar and Obi to inspect the materials used by INEC to conduct the elections but INEC brought a fresh motion seeking for an order to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, a move that was opposed by Obi and Abubakar.

After arguments were canvassed by parties in the matter, the court acceded to the argument of INEC and ordered the reconfiguration of the BVAS.

In its motion, INEC had told the court that the BVAS needed to be reconfigured for the governorship elections across the country.

It told the court that if the motion is not granted, the elections may not hold because it needs five days to reconfigure the device.

The court led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh, in its wisdom granted the request of INEC, as well as the president-elect’s request to inspect INEC’s electoral materials.

Consequent to the above, the electoral body postponed the scheduled March 11, governorship and state houses of assembly’s election by one week to enable it enough time to reconfigure the BVAS.

Subsequently, the commission reiterated it’s not against litigants inspecting election materials they require to pursue their cases in court.

Therefore, it reassured them that the data from the just concluded elections will be backed up and available in INEC cloud facilities and the INEC Results Viewing Portal.

Meanwhile, the president-elect has on his part assembled 49 Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SAN, to defend his case in court, he had a meeting with his legal team and told them that the matter before the court is not all about him but about the defence of democracy.

A legal icon and one-time President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Wole Olanipekun, will lead 49 other lawyers to defend the victory of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu at the presidential election tribunal over his arch rivals, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, who have challenged his victory.

However, supporters of the parties are divided over the credibility of the elections and the outcome as the hope of many Nigerians lies in the court to do justice in the matter.

Political watchers have averred that going by the outcome of previous presidential election petition cases, one would say Abubakar and Obi’s petitions are dead on arrival.

But Nigerians, especially, those who massively voted for Obi known as Obidients and Atiku known as Aticulates are hoping, and are of the opinion that the search for justice for their candidates would not be in vain.

Before the election was conducted, INEC had assured Nigerians that their votes were going to count with the introduction of Bimodal Voters Accreditation System BVAS

On the commission’s promise on the use of BVAS during the election, INEC at an event said no going back on the use of the machine.

The plateau state Electoral Commissioner, Dr Oliver Agundu, said this during a meeting with party leaders and candidates in Jos on Wednesday.

Agundu stated that the commission was ready to deliver the most credible and transparent elections the state ever witnessed.

Further in his speech, he appealed to all stakeholders to always seek information from official sources in the commission rather than building stories based on assumptions and hearsay.

He said rumours and fake news were deadly weapons capable of causing chaos and upheaval, especially in a politically charged society such as Nigeria.

Concluding, he warned politicians to desist from visiting his home and unofficial venues but visit his office in the commission for business transactions.

Did INEC fail to live up to its promises on the use of BVAS for the election?

Some of the reports of the foreign mission election observers are damning.

The European Union in its report said the election lacks transparency.

The EU said in its report, “The EU observation mission said the elections were held on schedule but lack of transparency and operational failures reduced trust in the process and called for the right to vote.

“Fundamental freedom of assembly and movement were largely respected, yet the full enrolment of the latter was impeded by insufficient planning, insecurity, and the prevailing Naira and fuel shortages.

“However, lack of public information on election technologies (Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and IreV) diminished expectations and left room for speculation and uncertainty.”

On its part, African Union and ECOWAS observers noted that Nigeria’s democracy is critical to the stability of the sub-region in particular and that of the continent in general.

The African Union observation mission was led by the Former President of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta, and the Former President of Sierra Leone, Ernest Koroma.

Kenyatta urged the INEC to improve on logistics operations and review the allocation of voters per polling unit to ensure everyone cast their ballots within the stipulated time.

Chatham House, an independent policy institute based in London, stated that from its analysis of the presidential election, it would appear that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) failed to learn new lessons.

The organisation stressed that the electoral umpire failed to adhere to its own guidelines, which it enunciated before the poll, especially the one bordering on the uploading of results in real-time.

Stating that Nigeria’s presidential election results had put disenfranchisement in the spotlight, Chatham House noted that despite boasting the biggest electoral register in Africa of 93.4 million voters, fewer than 25 million valid votes were counted in Nigeria’s 2023 election

Hoffman wrote, “The INEC’s performance and controversies over these results mean that the electoral reforms and lessons declared to have been learned were not fully applied and, as an electoral body, it was significantly less prepared than it claimed.

As the legal fireworks begins, it is the hope of the electorates that the judiciary lives up to it’s mandate and redeem their already battered image.

From Umar Dankano,Yola

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has been urged to cancel the National Assembly election of the Hong/Gombi federal constituency in Adamawa state.

A candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP),Ahmad Sa’ad Yarima who participated in the 25th Febuary election gave the urge through a press release lamenting that the exercise was marred with irregularities and malpractices in most of the polling units.

Yarima expressed reservations with the election alleging that BVAS machines were not used in many wards of the two local government areas while other areas experienced over voting