Conference Of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has lamented that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has “deliberately frustrated the deepening of the country’s democratic advancement as well as the only legacy President Muhammadu Buhari may have intended to leave after signing into law the amended Electoral Act 2022, which cleared the coast for the deployment of technology in Nigeria’s elections.”

In a terse statement signed by its Secretary General, Chief Willy Ezugwu, in reaction to the controversy surrounding the Adamawa State governorship election, the CNPP said that “in saner clime, all the INEC and non-INEC official fingered in the viral allegation of bribery and falsification of election results in Adamawa State should be in jail.

“This is not the case because INEC is either acting a script by the enemies of Nigeria’s democracy or some selfish political elites who wish to get the country engulfed in politically motivated anarchy for yet-to-be known personal benefits.

“The unwarranted palpable tension in Adamawa State since on Sunday when the state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Hudu Yunusa-Ari, announced Aisha ‘Binani’ Dahiru, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner of the gubernatorial election is not different from illegalities the commission, in collaboration with politicians, allegedly in the February 25 presidential election in many parts of the country.

“The conduct of the Adamawa State governorship election, which obviously did not go down well with many residents, points clearly to the 2023 sham elections in many states.

“For the CNPP, all the damage control mechanism deployed by INEC in trying to make Nigerians believe that it meant well in Adamawa State or other parts of the country amounts to mere film trick.

“The INEC leadership, particularly the Chairman of the commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, had assured Nigerians of real-time transmission of 2023 polls results but deliberately failed to make its innovative biometric devices work and resorted to manually transmitted results collation, which opened up the planned electronically controlled electoral processes to all kinds of manipulation.

“Sadly, INEC under the current leadership presents itself as a cash-and-carry Commission where the highest bidder is declared the winner against the wishes of the electorates and urged to go to court.

“Unfortunately, in the eyes of many Nigerians, the judiciary is yet to prove its readiness to deliver judgment on electoral matters based on the merit of the cases rather than relying on technicalities to deny litigants justice in election petitions.

“So many Nigerians have expressed reservations over the preparedness of the judiciary to be firm in delivering justice in many pre-election matters brought before the courts in 2023, particularly at the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

“The actions and inactions of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are obviously aimed at intentionally derailing the legal preparations put in place by President Muhammadu Buhari ahead this year’s elections.

“The result is the now clearly doomed legacy of free, fair, and credible 2023 general elections which President Buhari would have left behind on May 29 as his outstanding legacy in eight years, but the Adamawa State governorship election has brought to a woeful climax the unpleasant tale of INEC supervised electoral impunity”, the CNPP said.

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