No One Can Rig Elections Again, Says Moghalu

David-Chyddy Eleke in Awka

A presidential aspirant of African Democratic Congress (ADC), Prof. Kingsley Moghalu has said the new electoral reforms will make it difficult for politicians to rig elections.

Moghalu, a former Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, said he could obtain victory in the forthcoming 2023 presidential election unlike 2019 when he said his votes were stolen.

He made the remark in Awka at the weekend during a consultative meeting with the states and national leadership of Youth Wing Christian Association of Nigeria (YOWICAN).

At the meeting, Moghalu lamented that his votes “were stolen in 2019. Admitted that Buhari and Atiku scored more votes than myself. But I certainly did not get the 22,000 votes allocated to me by INEC.

“I did not go to Borno State to campaign because of security situation there, but my driver, Shetima who is from there called me many times to tell me that people were voting for me in Borno.

“From what we got from our agents, we scored over 33,000 votes in Borno alone, but what they did was to give me 600 votes in Borno. It is same way that they slashed our votes all across the country.

“That was the experience that made me to leave YPP and join the campaign for electoral reforms. We fought for it and we got it. For 2023, with the reforms, if I am going in to contest, I’m going in to win,” Moghalu said.

Speaking to the youths on the theme: towards peaceful and violence-free election, quest for nation building, Moghalu urged the youths to take their future in their hands, insisting that every society that has ever achieved greatness began by prioritising their youths.

“Nigeria must create opportunities for the young people for the country to grow. Nigeria must create jobs, when you do, you are creating wealth and prosperity and saying bye-bye to poverty.

“Under my watch, Nigeria will say bye-bye to insecurity, terrorism, religious fanaticism, poverty and say welcome to progress.

“You must vote for your future and not for your ancestors. Vote for the future of this great country. We have left the past behind and we are thinking about the future now. Your future matters most to me.

“I could as well have remained overseas, or taken up a job as the managing director of any big conglomerate in the world, but I have decided I will not leave Nigeria. Except of course there is civil war here.”