Three opposition parties called for the election to be canceled, led by the ruling party’s candidate, with results in 19 out of 36 states announced.
Abuja, Nigeria – Three of Nigeria’s opposition parties have called for the February 25 presidential and parliamentary elections to be canceled, as the ruling Progressive People’s Congress (APC) has spearheaded the ongoing reconciliation process. take place.
Provisional results announced Independent National Election Commission (INEC) from 19 of Nigeria’s 36 states put APC’s presidential candidate Bola Tinubu in the lead, ahead of Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of The Labor Party (LP) and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP).
On Wednesday, the LP, PDP and African Democratic Congress called for new polls during a joint press conference held in the capital Abuja, saying that waiting for the announcement of the final results would ” like waiting to dispose of a corpse.”
“We are disappointed to see the farce against democracy on display at the INEC collation center. To say the least is a rape against democracy,” said Julius Auber, president of the LP, which accused widespread manipulation.
“We are therefore forced to declare that INEC violated the integrity of the election even before the reconciliation process began… We therefore concluded that the election was compromised. irreparably.”
The parties also called on INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu to step down and be replaced by “a trustworthy person from outside the committee”.
“Electoral results are still being manipulated within government agencies,” Aure alleges. “If you send your child to school and he fails the exam, they will repeat the class. INEC has failed,” he said. “The results released by INEC to date show a huge disparity between the actual results reported by our party agents and the reality of millions of Nigerians on election day.”
Dino Melaye, a PDP politician and former senator who moderated the press conference, added: “What we have seen is distribution of votes, not reconciliation.
Since Saturday’s election, observers, voters and civil society leaders have complained about logistical challenges in conducting polls and the speed at which the results are loaded. from the voting units to a new portal designed to improve the transparency of the slow-moving election.
Critics say that has facilitated manipulation of results without providing any specific names so far.
Ayisha Osori, former executive director of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, told Al Jazeera: “The Nigerian collation is a black hole – nothing can be trusted without a means of verification. “As a low-trust society, we welcome IReV [the results viewing portal] as a means of verifying our voting unit results. Without this transparency, the results written by a few people would be difficult to accept.”
The APC has denied the opposition’s accusations, calling on INEC to quickly publish the results to defuse the situation.
Meanwhile, former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday wrote an open letter to outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari, claiming that INEC officials had been compromised and that the results were proven.
He urged Buhari to “annul all elections that do not pass the test of credibility and transparency”.
“Let me appeal to the President of INEC, if his hand is clean, save Nigeria from the danger and disaster that awaits,” Obasanjo added.
The opposition also spoke of the president’s need to call off contested elections, even as the country waited for the results to be announced and there were growing fears of possible post-election violence. nominate.
Former Nigerian Senate President Iyorchia Ayu, President of the PDP, said: “We do not want Nigerians to take the law and our representatives have the responsibility to carry out this action.
