FORMER Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has called for the cancellation of election results in areas where the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and servers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were manipulated or inactive.
Obasanjo made the demand in a letter on Monday, February 27, where he called the attention of President Muhammadu Buhari to the manipulation of election results.
“It is no secret that INEC officials, at operational level, have been allegedly compromised to make what should have worked not to work and to revert to manual transmission of results which is manipulated and the results doctored.
“The Chairman of INEC may claim ignorance but he cannot fold his hands and do nothing when he knows that election process has been corrupted and most of the results that are brought outside BVAS and Server are not live reflection of the will of Nigerians who have made their individual choice,” he noted.
He called on Buhari and the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Mahmood Yakubu to avoid what he described as looming danger and a disaster waiting to happen.
“If the Chairman can postpone elections four days to the election, he can do everything to rectify the errors of the last two days. No BVAS, no result to be acceptable; and no upload through Server, no result to be acceptable,” Obasanjo noted.
He advised that elections which were not credible enough be rescheduled for March 4, and officials handling the BVAS and INEC server be replaced.
Obasanjo also urged the President to set up a committee, including INEC staff, representatives of the four major political parties, and chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association to look into ways to make the rescheduled elections hitch-free.
He urged Nigerians to exercise patience while the issue is addressed.
Following the Presidential and National Assembly elections which were held on Saturday February 25, INEC has been widely condemned by Nigerians for failing to transmit election results electronically.
The Commission had blamed its inability to upload the results on technical glitches affecting the INEC Result Veiwing (IReV) portal, and this has affected Nigerians confidence in the credibility of the election results.
Ijeoma Opara is a journalist with The ICIR. Reach her via [email protected] or @ije_le on Twitter.
Hypocrite. Which elections were conducted free and fair when you were President? May GOD exposes your hypocrisy before you die