Peter Obi slams INEC over 2023 election report

Peter Obi, the Labour Party's (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 election, has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of deceiving Nigerians with the poll report released on Friday. 

Allnews.ng had reported that INEC stated in the 526-page report on the 2023 elections, which was formally released before the election's first anniversary, why the IREV failed to submit the presidential results despite the bimodal voter accreditation system's smooth operation.

INEC stated that the system issued an "HTTP error" due to a configuration fault detected after polling unit presiding officers could only upload the results of the national assembly elections.

However, in an interview with the Daily Trust, Peter Obi, speaking via the Chief Spokesperson of the Obi-Datti Campaign Committee, Yunusa Tanko, branded the news as "medicine after death."

According to him, the INEC report claiming that IReV refused to function is untrue, as there were three elections that day and only the presidential result refused to upload.

He remarked that unfortunately, everyone knew when INEC issued a written statement indicating that they would not accept any result not placed on the IREV.

He went on to say that the report deceives Nigerians and that the electoral act and law should be revisited to provide clarity about the election process.

He said, “I think the INEC report is medicine after death. The truth about it is that if I didn’t mean that INEC actually dealt with this issue as it happened during the election, possibly Nigerians would have believed and trusted this particular report.

“But here we are, the report of the INEC which signifies that the IREV refused to function or been uploaded during the election is false. Considering the fact that there were three elections that happened on that day, the Federal House of Representatives, and the Senate, and the result was uploaded and there was no issue.

“Why must there be an issue as regards to the presidential election? So totally for us is deceit, disdain for the people and is trying to promote an indecency.

“It is documented and everybody saw it. But then this is the same INEC who went again to the Supreme Court citing that they had the authority to collate the result manually and it was stamped on authority on illegality by our judiciary.

“And you want to convince me that that particular issue of glitch was not done deliberately? The truth is that nobody was arrested. Somebody ought to have been arrested who has been saddled with that responsibility.

“And if he is saddled with the responsibility, he must be held responsible and account for why the glitches occur.

“And even if there was a glitch, it’s just like your network taking off. It shouldn’t take up to a whole day. A few seconds it is off, three seconds it is back. Why was the server not back or why was the glitch not resolved?

“So for me and many of us, this is totally unacceptable. The report is deceitful to the Nigerian people. Our electoral act and electoral law must be revisited to give clarity as regards to the process of our election.

“We don’t want to give any lacuna to any of our election process and give room for the judiciary only to decide who wins election. Election should be done and dusted at the polling units.”