…accuses INEC of election manipulations

By Chuks Eke

Former Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Idemili branch in Anambra state, Hon. Samuel Chukwukelu has expressed disappointment over what he described as the brazen manner with which the electoral umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC manipulated the recently concluded presidential election in the country.

He therefore offered a free legal service to the aggrieved Labour Party executive and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi to enable them recover their stolen mandate from the All Progressives Congress, APC and its flag bearer, Ahmed Bola Tinubu so as to serve as a deterrent to other contestants in future elections.

Speaking to newsmen yesterday at his law chamber in Nkpor, near Onitsha, Chukwukelu said the volume of manipulation allegedly perpetrated by INEC in favour of APC was too inexplicable that somebody like himself and other lovers of democracy should intervene and join hands with the supposed winners of the election to recover their mandate if democracy must survive in Nigeria.

According to Chukwukelu, a private legal practitioner, “The election generally was marred with irregularities, non compliance with relevant sections of the Electoral Act and violence in some areas and as a result, the exercise amounts to nullity”.

“We are therefore calling on INEC to annul or cancel the result in respect of post or position of president. The law is meant to be obeyed and has to be obeyed, otherwise there wouldn’t have been any need for such laws to be made ab initio”.

” Every law made is meant to address certain situations and if that which the law is meant to be addressed is not followed in accordance, that thing will not be deemed or be said to have been done at all, having failed to do it in accordance with the way and manner that law was made”.

“In the instant case, therefore, the laws that regulate the conduct of election in Nigeria is the Electoral Act. 2022 and this Act specifically stated the procedure to be followed in conducting elections vis-à-vis the presidential election and the Act provides that all the elections will be conducted in various polling units and it started by stating what the Electoral Officers in the polling units ought to do by carrying out accreditation exercise”.

“The law says that upon accreditation, the electoral officers will be able to know the numbers of voters in a polling unit. To make it easier, the Act introduced BIVAS in which case, the accreditation is no longer done manually. Every voter is captured in the process of accreditation, then upon conclusion of the voting exercise, the votes are counted at the polling units and results announced in the units and same results captured and sent directly to the server so that there wouldn’t be any room for manipulations “.

“The introduction of BIVAS in the present Electoral Act is the highest achievement made by the country in our electoral system because it reduced the opportunity of fraudsters and or election riggers in Nigeria and it is this mischief which the Electoral law tends to arrest that the INEC deliberately ignored and went ahead to embark on manual collation of results, suspending the usage of the newly introduced BIVAS”.

“The question now is what is the effects of the exercise and it amounts to nullity as they could not conduct the election in line with the electoral act. You don’t choose when to obey the law and when not to obey. INEC has no right to do so. They can’t just comply with the law in respect to the Senate and House of Representatives elections and decide otherwise in presidential election that was done same time. It is unjustifiable and cannot be supported”.

” INEC has disappointed us at a time we are waking up from slumber. The electoral law raised hope for Nigerians but unfortunately, the hope to see a new Nigeria by Nigerians was killed by INEC. As you can see, there was no jubilation anywhere when that result was announced in favour of Tinubu. Everybody went into mourning mood “.

Yakubu Mahmoud should be removed from that seat because he is not worthy to hold that office again. He is a disgrace to Nigeria and to his family and he will forever be remembered for that in the history of Nigeria. His removal from office does not exonerate him from punishment, having committed a punishable offence. Rigging an election is an offence punishable by law. The offence has been committed and time does not give waiver for the punishment”.

On the new naira swap policy, Chukwukelu queried: ” what have they achieved in the so-called naira swap? Nothing. The swap policy was based on checkmating rigging and vote buying . Federal Government achieved that as people voted willingly according to their conscience only for their votes not to count. That is the height of man’s inhumanity to man and posterity will live to judge them for ignoring the law and imposing the candidate of APC, Tinubu as the president- elect of Nigeria which obviously will affect them in future elections as aparthy will now be enthroned “.

“Definitely, the court is the last hope of a common man and we still believe so. If President Muhammadu Buhari fails to compel the umpire to cancel this election, then we should continue to be law abiding and allow those aggrieved to go to court and that is why I decided to offer free legal services to the presumed winners of the recently concluded presidential election”.

PRESIDENTIAL candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has formed a 19 legal luminaries whom are all ( SAN’s) to challenge the victory of Bola Tinubu in the February 25 presidential election.

The PDP presidential candidate, while inaugurating the legal team at his campaign headquarters in Abuja, charged it to establish the claim of illegality in the February 25 presidential election and reclaim the mandate of the Nigerian people.

Atiku told the team that apart from reclaiming the mandate from those who undertook the electoral heist that was not a reflection of the will of Nigerians, the legal team should also use the opportunity of the trial to strengthen constitutional democracy in the country.

Addressing the team headed by Chief J. K. Gadzama, SAN, at the conference room of his office at the campaign headquarters, Atiku said it was imperative that they work assiduously in reclaiming the mandate not necessarily because of him and the PDP, but to strengthen democracy and the electoral process and for generations unborn.”

The members of the team include Chief Chris Uche (SAN), Mr. Paul Usoro (SAN), Tayo Jegede (SAN), Ken Mozia (SAN), Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), Mahmood Magaji (SAN), Joe Abraham (SAN), Mr Chukwuma Umeh (SAN), Dr. Garba Tetengi (SAN) and Chief Emeka Etiaba (SAN).

Others are Chief Goddy Uche (SAN), Prof. Maxwell Gidado (SAN); the National Legal Adviser of the PDP, A. K. Ajibade (SAN), Mr. O. M. Atoyebi, (SAN), Mrs. Nella Rabana (SAN), Paul Ogbole (SAN), Nuremi Jimoh (SAN), and Abdul Ibrahim (SAN).

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Abdullahi Adamu, has met with the party’s governors ahead of Saturday’s governorship and House of Assembly elections.The meeting which was held on Tuesday at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja also had members of the National Working Committee in attendance.

Aside from the governors, all of the party’s flag bearers in the March 11 polls were in in in attendance.

In a post shared on its official Twitter handle, the APC said; Ahead of the Saturday, 11th March 2023 Governorship and State Assembly Elections, the National Chairman, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu alongside members of the National Working Committee met with the Party’s Governors and other flag bearers at the National Secretariat, in Abuja.”