Chairman, Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC), Yabagi Sani, has dismissed those agitating over the conduct of the presidential election, saying the process was largely fair.
Sani, who was featured on TVC’s Politics Tonight, yesterday noted that though there were a few infractions about the election, the missing links were minor.
On February 25, 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted the Presidential and National assembly Elections.
Out of 18 contestants on the ballot, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was announced the winner by INEC.
But since the announcement of the president-elect, some political parties insist that the election was not credible.
However, Sani said the election was far better than past elections.
His words: “Nigeria is a very big country. We play big in the comity of nations. We are the largest population in Africa and have a very dynamic population.
“Well for the presidential elections, except for the anti-climax of not being able to upload the results from the polling units, it was largely a peaceful election.
“Certainly, there were instances of violence and use of money; all in all, I think it was not a bad outing completely as far as the mobilisation, excitement of Nigerians, and the involvement of Nigerians in deciding their future. What didn’t work for us was technology.”
He said that INEC did all it promised to do, but urged the electoral umpire to improve in some areas it did not get right.
“I think everything that INEC promised was achieved. The BIVAS worked in a number of places, and uploading the results worked; except that for the presidential election.
“Notwithstanding, the presidential elections were fairly ok and I don’t think we could have had it better than that.
“We performed wonderfully well in the manner the election was conducted.”
Sani said that the task of announcing the election results when agents of the political parties were of the contrary view.
“Of course, some political parties were not happy, but at a point, we had to step in to urge INEC to continue announcing the result.”
The IPAC chair the polity was heated up due to some dysfunctional policies the government unveiled at the time of the elections, adding those policies were counter-productive.
“Leading to the elections, there were some dysfunctional policies that the government announced. One such was the re-colouring of some of our notes. That was a disruptive policy and it introduced some unnecessary pressure.”
“Two, the lack of money was counterproductive. This is because it didn’t check any vote-buying. That policy also introduced unnecessary pressure into the process.”
He said INEC should be blamed for the dysfunction of the BIVAS in some quarters.
According to Sani, there was a need for the electoral umpire to ensure that the rules guiding the conduct of elections were enforced.
