The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been accused of not ready to conduct “a free and fair election” as the 2023 general elections approach.
This was stated by a socio-political group under the aegis of Progressive Coalition in a statement signed its secretary, Alhaji Dan Sule, on Monday.
“The electoral body is not ready to conduct a free and fair election given the recent trends monitored by the organization.
“The electoral body is ill prepared given its antecedents of two postponements and the recent condemnation of its procedures and values by the Osun State Electoral Tribunal in its final judgement in the last conducted governorship election between Governor Oyetola and Senator Adeleke.”
The group added that, bearing Osun Tribunal verdict in mind, the election umpire has lots of loopholes to attend to in how BVAS operates.
“The “BVAS loophole” as it is called is now the major headache of INEC and should give headache to well meaning progressives given INEC’s recent hues and cries that their database is being hacked. There are insinuations that the opposition plans to exploit this to hack the BVAS,” the Executive Secretary stated.
“In a related event, it was also revealed by intelligence gathered that the mock BVAS exercise conducted by INEC over the last weekend failed woefully and that indeed, BVAS was likely to be be a major source of chaos if the presidential elections were held in less than two weeks.
“It was said that INEC officials were as usual covering their tracks and some may well have been compromised by the opposition.”
The executive secretary subsequently called on INEC to come out clearly if they cannot meet up with the demands of Nigerians for a free, fair and transparent elections and should stop collusion with anti-democratic retrogressive forces that is bent on sabotaging and embarrassing the government of the day that has given INEC a free hand to operate instead of tele-guiding.
The group concluded that, “Indeed, another postponement will be an embarrassment to this administration, given that it will be a third one in a row in general elections, but if the cause is opposition hacking and sabotage as progressive forces have found out in Osun, then INEC must come out boldly to declare the same.”
