PHOTOS: CSOs protest at INEC HQ, ask Mahmood Yakubu to resign

A coalition of 18 civil society organisations (CSO) has asked Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to resign his position over the “poor conduct” of the presidential and national assembly elections.

The polls were held on February 25.

INEC announced that Bola Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), secured 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who got 6,984,520 votes, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), who polled 6,101,533 votes.

The coalition said the electoral commission performed below expectations during and after the conduct of the elections.

Speaking during a protest at the headquarters of INEC in Abuja on Tuesday, Dada Olayinka, the coalition’s convener, expressed dismay over the late arrival of election materials at polling units across the country and complications over the use of the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS).

“INEC claimed the BVAS technology was going to be effectively deployed to forestall rigging and overvoting,” Olayinka said.

“These were major pillars upon which Nigerians anchored their excitement and belief in the process of electing their leaders.

“However, events during and after the elections would later prove that INEC performed below expectations and pulled the wool over the eyes of Nigerians. Over 93.5 million Nigerians were registered for the February 2023 elections, but only 23 percent of the total figure were able to vote. This is lower than the previous elections.

” While many had hoped to maximally utilize the use of BVAS technology for easy accreditation and eventual voting thereby increasing participation, the BVAS technology was either deployed lately or bypassed in many polling units thereby disenfranchising a large majority.

“In many other areas, people who had arrived at polling units ahead of time couldn’t enjoy voting rights due to non-functionality and or inexperienced operation of the BVAS by largely untrained ad hoc staff.

“In places where BVAS worked efficiently, there were reported cases of overvoting in many centers leading to the denial of voter’s rights. Many votes didn’t count.

“Large-scale violence orchestrated by political thugs supported by some desperate candidates who knew it was impossible for them to win free and fair elections thereby leading to the cancellation of results.

“Non-transmission of results from polling units to the INEC server and the non-functionality of the Irev where Nigerians would have had the opportunity to monitor results real time and accurately.

“The coalition of civil societies of Nigeria, an umbrella forum comprising 18 others, demand the immediate resignation of Prof. Mahmoud Yakub and also entire cancellation of the sham results announced by him.”

The convener said the CSOs would not accept “any foisting of a compromised election on the nation”.

Below are pictures from the protest.