Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has threatened to sue PDP officials if they continue to disparage his reputation in the media.
The INEC chief issued a warning after the PDP called for his resignation yesterday.
The party charged that the INEC chairman had broken the terms of the Electoral Act of 2022 as well as the commission’s rules, instructions, and manual for the February 25 presidential and parliamentary elections.
The PDP also demanded that Prof. Yakubu be the subject of an investigation by the police, Department of State Services (DSS), and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) into possible electoral offenses.
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, claimed that the INEC chairman had subverted the will of the Nigerian people while speaking to a media conference on Friday in Abuja.
Ologunagba charged the INEC under Yakubu with undermining the integrity of the elections by purposefully obstructing the uploading and transmission of results straight from the polling places, opening the door for illegal election tampering.
“From all indications, the INEC was compromised to rig the election by flagrantly flouting the requirements of the Electoral Act, 2022 as well as INEC’s Regulations, Guidelines, and Manual issued for the election,” said Ologunagba.
It is also obvious that the Commission, led by Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, purposefully interfered with the uploading and transmission of election results straight from the polling places in order to facilitate the criminal mutilation, alteration, and switching of election results across the country in favor of the APC, as is now amply demonstrated by photographic and video evidence of tampered results sheets in numerous regions of the nation.
In states across the six geopolitical zones of the country, there is a plethora of evidence showing that winning numbers legitimately scored by the PDP in favor of the APC were changed; result sheets from polling locations won by the PDP were destroyed and replaced with fake result sheets on which the APC was given unearned winning figures.
This further explains why the INEC chairman hurried to announce and declare manipulated results that were not directly transmitted from the polling places to INEC’s server/website and ignored the objections and complaints raised during the collation of results in deliberate violation of Section 64 (4) (a) and (b), 64 (6) (a)-(d), and 65 (1) (c) of the Electoral Act 2022.
For emphasis, Sections 64 (6) (a)-(d) and 65 (1) (c) compel INEC to take steps, including the review of collation, in the case of disputes, complaints, or objections regarding a collated result or the result of an election from any polling unit where they are made in violation of Section 64 (4) (a) and (b), which expressly require the INEC chairman to announce only results that were transmitted directly from the polling units.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu is not only guilty of a serious electoral offense but also betrayed the confidence and hope that Nigerians placed in him and the electoral commission to conduct a free, fair, and credible election in the nation by flagrantly violating these provisions of the Electoral Act of 2022 and INEC’s regulations, guidelines, and manual for the election.
The PDP claimed that Prof. Yakubu’s continued tenure as INEC chairman was aggravating, harmful to the organization’s integrity, and an unforgivable assault on the process’s credibility, Nigerians’ sensibilities, and the interests of the international community.
Yakubu’s continued tenure in office, it continued, could pave the way for the destruction, tampering, and suppression of crucial evidence needed to further expose commission irregularities and violations before the Presidential Election Tribunal.
“This fear is demonstrated by INEC’s desperate attempt to reconfigure the BVAS devices in order to delete the critical data they contain.
“As a result, the PDP demands that Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of INEC, resign from his position immediately, having mistreated the trust and dashed the hopes of millions of Nigerians, political parties, and the international community for a free, fair, and credible election.
“Nigerians no longer have confidence in Prof. Mahmood Yakubu’s abilities and moral character to run a delicate democracy institution like INEC.
“Prof. Mahmood Yakubu’s resignation as INEC chairman will be the first step toward sanitizing the electoral commission and regaining Nigerians’ trust, particularly as the country gets ready for the rescheduled governorship and state assembly elections on March 18, 2023.
Additionally, the PDP demands that the Inspector General of Police and the Director General of the Directorate of State Services (DSS) immediately begin investigations into the electoral violations and manipulations by INEC with a view to prosecuting Prof. Mahmood Yakubu and other Commission officials for electoral offenses.
“In the same vein, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) should launch an investigation into claims that a number of top INEC officials were gravely financially compromised in order to rig the election.
The PDP noted the reports from various international organizations and expressed its disagreement with the leadership of INEC’s actions in undermining democracy during the conduct of the presidential and national assembly elections on February 25, 2023.
The PDP should go to court and present the bagful of evidence it claims to have, according to the INEC chairman, rather than putting the process through a media trial, he said in a statement released by his chief press secretary, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi.
He declared: “The Peoples Democratic Party PDP’s most recent call for Prof. Mahmood Yakubu to step down as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC is misplaced, just like it was with previous calls.
Interestingly, the PDP did not provide any convincing evidence to back up all the spurious allegations it listed as Prof. Yakubu’s ‘infractions’.
Undoubtedly, the PDP was unable to substantiate its claims that Yakubu had ‘blatantly violated the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022, INEC’s Regulations and Guidelines, and criminally manipulated and altered election results.
Additionally, the PDP failed to provide evidence to support its claims that Prof. Yakubu “sabotaged the uploading and transmission of results from polling units.”
Additionally, the’several evidences’ that the PDP claimed ‘abound in the six geo-political zones of the country where winning figures scored by the PDP were switched in favor of the APC’ were not made explicit.
“The Commission doesn’t rig elections, that much is certain. Instead, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), among other innovations, has since its introduction ensured the integrity of the electoral process by making sure that only voters who have been properly registered are permitted to cast ballots on election day.
“It is well known that the PDP has declared the presidential election results invalid and has vowed to sue over them in court.
Therefore, the path of honor for the party is to present its case in court, armed with all the evidence at its disposal, and await the judge’s ruling.
But calling for the resignation of the INEC Chairman while bringing up the same arguments the party plans to make in court is like putting the cart before the horse.
More importantly, the PDP is hereby reminded that it is illegal to make defamatory claims about the INEC Chairman. The party should stop doing this going forward.
Agbo Major, the New Nigeria Peoples Party’s (NNPP) national publicity secretary, stated that the party does not currently see the need for the INEC chairman to resign.
He added that Nigerians should get their act together right now and make sure that what happened on February 25th does not happen again, saying that removing the INEC chairman in the middle of the electoral process would be equivalent to moving the goal post in the middle of the game.
We generally don’t like to comment on things like that, he said. But for whatever reason, I don’t believe that call was the best course of action. You don’t move the goal post in the middle of a game, as I have always said.
“INEC may have made mistakes, but we don’t think it makes sense to remove its leadership now, just days before the next round of elections. You can campaign for this after the election is over, but not right now.
The only thing Nigerians need to do is keep an eye on the situation and make sure that what happened on February 25th does not happen again.
In a similar vein, Chief Victor Oye, National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), said the INEC chief should be given the opportunity to oversee the entire election before being asked to step down.
In response to the development, Oye told our correspondent in a chat that he wouldn’t comment further on the demand for Yakubu’s resignation until the next election was held.
(TNT)
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