The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has urged the judiciary to ensure justice is served in all electoral petitions from the Presidential and National Assembly elections held on February 25.
They have called on the court to restore faith in Nigeria’s democracy.
However, the CNPP criticized the conduct of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the polls. They believe it is up to the judiciary to restore hope and credibility in the country. The CNPP warns against abusing the current fragile peace in the country.
The CNPP did not want to engage with selfish individuals and groups who ignored voter intimidation and INEC’s failure to transmit election results from polling units in real-time, despite promises that electronic transmission of results had come to stay in the country’s electoral system.
They recall that INEC had assured voters that results from polling units without internet services would be automatically uploaded to the INEC IREV servers as soon as the BVAS was connected to the internet network.
However, INEC failed to upload the results even in urban cities with sufficient internet connections.
The CNPP believes that the delay in uploading the results in real-time during the presidential election was deliberate and aimed at ensuring the emergence of a predetermined outcome through manual collation.
They call on the international community and democracy lovers across the world to hold INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu responsible for the manipulations of the collation process, especially during the presidential election.
The CNPP had supported the deployment of technology to deepen democracy in Nigeria, but they find it disappointing that INEC, which had successfully transmitted results electronically in previous staggered elections, resorted to manual collation during the 2023 presidential election.
The CNPP urges Nigerians not to feel frustrated by the observed manipulation of the electoral system and come out to vote for the candidates of their choice in the March 11, 2023 governorship and state legislative elections.
They call on the Nigerian judiciary to reject technicalities and ensure litigants receive justice in election petitions
