Investigate 2023 elections – CSO tells President Buhari

International Organization for Peace Building and Social Justice (PSJ) and International Committee on Nigeria (ICON) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate the 2023 elections to ensure that the wishes of the people prevail.

PSJ Executive Director, Mr. Ishaya Inuwa Durkwa, made the call in a press statement issued to Journalists on Thursday in Jos.

Durkwa urged Buhari to summon the Council of State meeting as there were serious concerns and allegations raised about violations that occurred during the 2023 elections held in Nigeria on Saturday, 25th February 2023.

The executive director stated that it is a moral duty to investigate to avert a looming danger that could tip the country over the edge.

According to him, the Independent National Electoral Committee (INEC), as the electoral umpire, assured Nigerians on numerous occasions that it was prepared to conduct a free, fair, and credible election.

“The trust Nigerians built on that promise was witnessed by mass voter registration and massive turn out of voters at the polls.

“While, to some extent, the usual ballot snatching and violence may not have been abnormal, the pulse of the masses and party agents (at polling units, ward level, and collation center at the national level), suggests a cruel fraud in the entire conduct of the elections.

“Key issues from the beginning of voting include late arrival of INEC staff; in many cases till 3:00 pm for a process that was to start at 8:00 am.

“Failure of BIVAS machines, which slowed down the process and left a majority of voters waiting, in the end, it was observed that over 40 percent of voters in many polling units did not get to cast their votes.

“Arrival of INEC staff without Form EC8A to record results at the polling unit and many electoral officers claimed they were not issued and some only went back to get them after pressure from electorates,” he enumerated.

Durkwa further said that one of the key issues to be investigated is the failure to upload results to INEC for easy access on iReV.

The executive director added that there were cases of intimidation of certain ethnicities to either vote for a particular candidate or return to their homes without voting, with resultant injuries on many.

He stated that there were videos of underage voters as well as video evidence of voting without the use of BIVAS, where few individuals were seen thumb-printing bunches of ballot papers.

Durkwa added INEC adopted manual transmission of results as against what was agreed.

“The results were not fully uploaded up to the end of the collation at the Nation Collation Centre.

“Even the results uploaded on the iRev were full of errors, for example, you could log into the result of a particular polling station and find a picture or the result of another polling unit from another state entirely.

“That there were calls at the National Collation Centre by the political parties for the collation to be suspended until all the results are successfully uploaded and accessed by political parties to enable them to compare the results with was is being submitted by the various state collation officers of the election (scope) but their requests were ignored.

“Although these issues were raised at the national collation center by several political party agents, the manual transmission of the election continued.

“EU, US, U, and other observers have expressed their concerns on the failure of INEC to meet with even its set standard, s yet nothing was done,” he added.

Durkwa that the organizations found it crucial to draw the attention of the president and othestakeholdersrs to the flaws of the process, which became glaring anunderminedes the entire election.

Such flaws, he said, pose a cataclysmic threat to the survival of democracy and the very peace and existence of the nation Nigeria.

He pointed out there were many suspicions that the electoral umpire pronounced a result that does not reflect the will of the masses and if that is the case, is insensitive to the attendant consequence of it.

“The electoral umpire indeed went ahead with the transmission of the results and pronounced a candidate winner, who might not necessarily be the people’s choice.

“At the moment, Nigerians have a democracy to protect, and the very existence of a democratic nation is on the edge.

“We, therefore sue for peace and call on President Muhammadu Buhari, as a matter of utmost urgency, to assuage the feelings of Nigerian voters and begin work of investigating these allegations and incidents.

“There should not be a hand over the mantle of leadership and President-elect.

“Instead, summon a council of state, with all former heads of State, former service chiefs, elder statesmen, and religious and royal fathers, to brainstorm and prevail on INEC not to subvert the will of the people.

“Our country is in a dire need of healing at this critical time, w, e, therefore urge the current President and INEC to start putting machinery in place to reach out to work towards an understanding and rebuild a broken nation”.