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2023: INEC’s Partisanship, Brain Behind Renewed Electoral Violence -IYC
A pan-Ijaw group, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Opobo/Ibani Clan, has reminded the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, of the need to purge the electoral umpire under his watch of partisanship and electoral manipulations before organising the February and March, 2023 general election in Nigeria.
The IYC insisted that, “INEC under the present administration is number one electoral offender and electoral reform without INEC neutrality is a charade”.
Speaking with journalists in Port Harcourt on INEC and 2023 polls, President of the group, Hon. Ibitamuno Cookey-Gam, said that any electoral framework under this dispensation would only be against opposition parties as the Department of State Services (DSS), the Police, Armed Forces and other agencies of the Federal Government had been used during elections, especially the forthcoming general polls, and waned against a repeat in 2023.
Cookey-Gam quoted the IYC as saying that, “Even though the establishment of electoral offences tribunal is not entirely a bad idea, but INEC, as presently constituted, does not encourage free, fair and violence-free election in Nigeria, and it should bother Yakubu that INEC as at today is being referred to as Incompetent National Electoral Commission because of the commission’s partisanship.”
The IYC boss, who described electoral violence as a product of injustice, said even President Muhammadu Buhari had admitted his failure to conduct any free, fair and credible election since he assumed power seven years ago.
He said that during past elections, INEC had been unable to conduct credible polls, alluding to “the 2015 exercise where Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was missing on the result sheets of over 200 polling units and up till now, all what INEC has been able to tell the Nigerian electorate is that the criminal omission of PDP in the result sheets was due to printers error.
“This is enough case for electoral violence,” he said.
While blaming Buhari for eroding INEC’s independence, Cookey-Gam said: “The very day President Buhari interfered with the internal administration of INEC by appointing a close confidant, as in the case of Amina Zakari, national commissioner, as acting chairperson of the commission six years ago, a title unknown to Nigeria’s Constitution (as amended), INEC under Buhari’s APC government lost its independence and credibility. We will not condone such inordinate ambition and action in 2023.
“The reality that INEC must, therefore, face is that members of President Buhari’s APC government have become so emboldened to unleash violence on Nigerians during the 2023 general election because they know that the President will not lift a finger provided his party members are the ones perpetrating evil.
“INEC must, therefore, seek to regain its lost independence and credibility before talking about electoral punishment for election offenders, because as it stands now, INEC is the number one electoral offender and promoter of electoral violence,” Cookey-Gam warned.
By: Bethel Toby
