INEC deliberately rigged 2023 general election – Sam Amadi
* ‘Commission dismantled all election safeguards’
* ‘Pulled down and re-uploaded results 3 times’
*Says only committed judiciary can restructure Nigeria’s democracy
* We fought hard and won the election – APC chieftain, Sen. Ndoma Egba
Associate Professor and Director Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts, Dr. Sam Amadi, on Tuesday, knocked the Independent national Electoral Commission (INEC), accusing it of deliberately deciding to compromise the 2023 general election.
Dr. Amadi who was a Guest Speaker /lecturer at the second edition of New National Star Breakfast Meeting which held at Top Rank Hotel Galaxy in Abuja, with the topic “2023 General Elections: A Post Mortem” lamented that the electoral umpire was provided with all it needed to conduct a very transparent election, but failed Nigerians when they all eyes were on them to deliver their numerous promises.
He said that despite the early warning and red flags raised by the Civil Society Organizations, INEC continued to reassure Nigerians that it will conduct the most credible election in the history of the country only to switch off its server when it mattered most.
He lamented that the electoral umpire seems to have abdicated its responsibility to the judiciary, adding that elections were supposed to have less judicial interventions as it is the people that were supposed to elect leaders through the ballot papers and not through judicial pronouncements.
According to the erudite scholar, “INEC has destroyed the safeguards of the elections. INEC has capacity to improve on its performance by 80 percent, INEC deliberately chose to run a very flawed election. It is not technology, it is not a logistic problem, it was a deliberate plan to rig the election.
“The biggest weakling in this election is INEC not politicians. I was shouting that INEC may betray everybody, I had intelligence and I know that ultimately, INEC will fail and INEC failed.
“In some states, the result in the IReV is different from the declared result and INEC will issue you with a Certificate of Return.”
He said that it is only in Nigeria that people aspire into political offices to get wealth; hence politicians employ all sorts of dangerous measures to grab political power.
“In the civilized world, no one is rich because he is in power but the reverse is the case in Nigeria. Elections are life and death because once you are elected; you will become a rich man. Our elections are contentious because the pay out of public office is too high,” Amadi lamented.
The former Chairman of Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) said that the electoral process has been so much bastardized by INEC that a lot of politicians are considering investing more in procuring arms and empowering thugs, instead of soliciting for votes because the electoral umpire sabotaged the entire electoral process.
“When a nation doesn’t tell itself the truth, it continues in error. Triumphalism, we have won, we told them, snatch it, grab it and run with it. That is now the Nigerian language and we are all happy, we have won, we have lost but you cannot determine the consequence of victory and loss. This was an election that was supposed to be the best election in Nigeria.”
Amadi said that the Sen. Ken Nnamani committee that crafted the electoral act created three important safeguards to ensure that the process was seamless but said that INEC decided to bastardize all of them.
“The election had three important safeguards: for the first time, it was held that all delegates that will participate in the primary must be democratically elected. Statutory delegates were no more delegates. INEC saw it and we had fairly good primaries to the extent that even the man who was the Senate President couldn’t become a candidate. Again, the courts and INEC connived and imposed two candidates who never participated in those primaries. So, from day one, they started destroying the safeguards.
“The second safeguard, according to Amadi, was on the use of BVAS. “BVAS safeguard was necessary because after elections are conducted, the decision makers will write the result.
“The safeguard stated that any result that is not from the BVAS is void. In most of the elections, the use of BVAS was avoided. Today, Enugu is in flames, the declaration of INEC is being contested on the basis that the results were procured without BVAS.”
He said that the third safeguard was real time electronic result transmission. “The law even says that if there is a dispute on the figures produced, the one in the IREV Portal will be relied on because you can’t easily destroy digital data, there is a footprint and even if you pull it down, the history of that intervention can be reconstructed.”
He said that despite the doubt raised by several stakeholders and members of the Civil Society Organizations, INEC continued to reassure that it will transmit results real-time from the polling units. “If that were done, 50 percent of electoral cases would not go to court. Why pay SAN for a case you will lose. Unfortunately, INEC switched off the light when it mattered most.”
He said that credible elections are the foundation of any society and good governance.
“Elections are important because they are the first incentive for good governance. The moment you criminalize the electoral process, you have conducted a natural selection for who will govern. Only those who can mobilize criminality will run for election. We have over time criminalized the electoral process such that elections themselves are part of war and only those who are seasoned in criminality win elections.”
He said that INEC became involved in result alteration and falsification of figures.
“INEC has done three uploaded of results on the IReV, they bring it down, change the results and upload, Amazon has the back end. You pull down your result on the IReV because it did not add up, upload another one after elections, three weeks after elections.”
He cautioned the new trend in the electoral process especially in some states where some people were shut out from voting because of their preference for a particular candidate.
“We have never had elections where Nigerian citizens were structurally asked not to vote, prevented from voting.
“What happened in Lagos on March 18 is equivalent to a genocide, political genocide targeted on a people because of presumed political view.
“We have seen people rig but we have not seen people desperate to not losing to the point of stopping their in-laws, brothers, friends, employees, employers from voting.
“What we saw was not ethnic hatred but an efficient criminal operation to smuggle victory from the jaws of defeat. It has nothing to do with Yourba or Igbo, they are living happily. In fact, the people who did it love Igbo but they must win and to win, they must distort that demography from voting.
He maintained that INEC has all the blame for compromising the process.
“You were uploading House of Reps and Senate results, but for the Presidency, you changed the password. That is not a glitch.
“In elections, the process is far better than the outcome, it doesn’t matter who won, all of them are good politicians, all of them can hire a good team to work.
“All of them between Atiku Abubakar, Tinubu, Kwankwaso, Peter Obi, Sowore could have been better than the present one. It is not about your candidate not winning, it is about how they won.”
He said that the present predicament calls for an overhaul of the present democratic structure.
“We have been deceived to focus on elections instead of focusing on democratization, on creating institutions that are fair and neutral. What is a free and fair election if the police and military can prevent some people from coming out to vote on the day of election. What is a free and fair election if the umpire itself can be purchased by a person you are competing against.”
Reacting to Amadi’s bombshell, chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, and former Senate Leader, Ndoma Egba, expressed his satisfaction with the outcome of the election, insisting that the APC worked hard to win
He also appealed to critics of the conduct of the presidential election, and candidates who lost the election to rather take to legal means of addressing their grievances.
“I was secretary of the campaign planning Directorate of the Presidential Campaign Council of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
“We worked hard enough to win. We went into this election to win and I believe that we won.
“The next person had totally different expectations from mine and so if the expectations didn’t play out the way mine worked, please what our constitution has said is that we should be subject to a process.
“Let us follow that process because I am entitled to my expectations, I am entitled to my expectations just as you are entitled to your expectations or your own views on the elections. Please let us be civil enough to subject whatever we think are the shortcomings to the processes that have been prescribed by the institution,” he appealed.
According to him, one of the biggest challenges that the APC had in the 2023 presidential election was the same faith ticket.
“Let me say this, the elections have come and gone. We are now in the next phase of it, which is the leadership of the National Assembly.
“One of the biggest challenges that we had as members of APC was the issue of the same faith ticket. It was a major problem we have today in the Senate and I believe that the criticism by the Obidient movement was the same faith ticket.
“We have just survived the anxieties of the same faith ticket. By the mercy of God let us not allow a repeat.
“With the elections into the leadership of the National Assembly, let people not take it because they can take it. It is not a question of might, it’s a question of equity and justice,” he said.
“So, let me use this forum to appeal to our Muslim brothers from the North who are indicating interest in the leadership of the National Assembly to please excuse themselves from the race in the interest of national unity.
“It is the whole intention and the whole essence in section 14(3) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Let our Muslim brothers from the North make that as their sacrifice for the unity of Nigeria by excusing themselves from any interest in the leadership of the National Assembly,’ he noted.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, New National Star, Newspaper, Dr Obinna Nwachukwu said there are divergent opinions on the conduct and outcome of the elections held across Nigeria on February 25 and March 28, 2023 respectively.
Nwachukwu, while setting the tone of discussion, said while some people applauded the electoral umpire the INEC, others including some local and international observer groups vilified the commission and the security agencies.
He noted that in the last three weeks, Nigeria has witnessed demonstrations/protests across the country and the protests have not stopped.