HURIWA: Without IREV, BVAS, Off-cycle Elections in Imo, Kogi, Bayelsa Will Be Procured

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

Civil Rights Advocacy Group, Human Writers  Rights Association of Nigeria  (HURIWA) has said that the off-cycle governorship polls in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi States will be procured by the highest bidders since the electronic transmission of results in real time has been sabotaged by both the election petition courts and top officials of the electoral body including the crooked decision on it by both the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT, and the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

Besides, HURIWA has expressed sadness that the National Assembly has not deemed it necessary to speedily amend the extant electoral Act to make it mandatory for electronic transmission of results from polling units to become legalised.

Also, HURIWA said it is inconceivable that the off-cycle governorship poll in Imo State will be transparent when INEC has refused to redeploy the Resident Electoral Commissioner who is allegedly linked biologically to the Deputy National Chairman of the All Progressive Congress.

HURIWA in a statement by its national coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, said that the electoral body has done nothing substantial to instill trust and gain the confidence of voters in those three states on their resolve to be fair, accountable and transparent.

He said  emphatically that there is a conspiratorial plot by the elite in INEC, National Assembly and the hierarchy of the nation’s judiciary, to perpetuate electoral heists which explains the impediments mounted against the legalization of the electronic transmission of results in real time.

The Rights group  therefore asked INEC to stop engaging in self-deceit by thinking that the use of sophistry can convince any sane Nigerian that the manipulations and electoral crimes committed by INEC on a national scale during the general election, wouldn’t be replicated in the off-cycle elections.

Onwubiko said; “We have watched with unfathomable amazement, the attempt, by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to once more hoodwink Nigerian voters in Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa States into believing their propaganda that “all the glitches experienced during the general elections of February 2023 had been taken care of”.

Accordingly, he said, “we are aware that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, expressed its readiness to conduct the November 11th governorship election in Bayelsa, Kogi, and Imo states, respectively. INEC Acting Director, Voter Education and Publicity, Mary Nkem, gave this assurance at a People’s Town Hall meeting on Election Security in Abuja. Nkem said all the glitches experienced during the general elections earlier in the year had been taken care of.

“She said INEC has put a lot of plans in place to guarantee early deployment of sensitive materials to polling units, including ad hoc officers camping near polling units a day before the exercise.

“Rather than people moving from the local government headquarters to the various polling units, they are moved closer to the PUs (polling units) where they are going to work. So, I can assure you that, God willing, we will deploy early,”

HURIWA dismissed INEC’s re-assurance as mere paper weight going by the fact that around September 16th 2022, INEC had told Nigerians that it was committed to the deployment of the bimodal voter registration system (BVAS) and IREV for the 2023 election and would transmit the results of all elections electronically but INEC failed to fulfill this promise during the general poll as only the National Assembly election results were eventually uploaded, thus refusing to do same for the Presidential poll and when it got to the Election Petition Tribunal, INEC argued that it wasn’t legally obliged to so do and the court glibly conceded to this claim by INEC which stands in contrast to the verbal commitment made by INEC before the conduct of the last general election.