Rights activist, Femi Falana, a senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN has joined other Nigerians expressing anger over the conduct of last week’s presidential and National Assembly election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has received criticism from not a few Nigerians who said they are dissatisfied with how the election was conducted across the country, citing cases of rigging, thuggery and intimidation of voters in places like Lagos and Rivers states, amongst others.
Among prominent Nigerians who said they are unsatisfied with the election include former President Olusegun Obasanjo who called on President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene and call INEC to order over, alleging manipulation of results due to the electoral umpire ‘s failure to release election results electronically.
Speaking on Tuesday, Falana, a human rights lawyer said INEC conduct has been most dissatisfactory.
According to him, the Commission has been tainted by some of its staff who allegedly compromised the election, adding that the Prof. Mahmood Yakubu – led body must now go back to the drawing board to prevent it from making future mistakes.
He said: “I expect INEC to go back to the drawing table and review the role of its ad-hoc staff, the role of its staff and ensure that all those who have been arrested by the police for disrupting the election, for announcing fake results or for forging results and for deliberately preventing people to vote must be charged to the relevant court so that those who are going to manage the next election will know that it will not be business as usua.”
He said the refusal of INEC to release results through the BVAS is raising serious suspicion among Nigerians who believe that the election results are being manipulated.
On Monday in Abuja during the final collation of results by INEC, Dino Melaye, a Returning Officer for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, caused a stir at the International Conference Centre, ICC after he accused INEC of trying to compromise the election.
He later led some other agents out of the Centre in protest.
