A former presidential spokesman, Laolu Akande says the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, ‘damaged’ its reputation over its failure to upload the presidential results on its INEC Result Viewing Portal, IREV.
Akande was the Senior Special Assistant to former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
He spoke on Friday on a Channels Television programme Politics Today, saying INEC destroyed the trust Nigerians had in the electoral umpire because Prof. Yakub Mahmood its Chairman had earlier promised to upload the result on its website.
The former presidential spokesman spoke less than 48 hours after the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
The five-man panel of the Court of Appeal had in their judgment upheld INEC’s power to decide the modality for announcing the election results.
INEC management, the PEPC said, did not break the law by its decision to transmit the results electronically.
Not a few Nigerians have however expressed their dissatisfaction with the judgment, saying it fell short of their expectations.
The Prof. Mahmood-led electoral body should have lived up to its promise to Nigerians, they insist.
Reacting Akande said, “It is important to establish something we cannot basically run away from. INEC came out of this election as a damaged good.
“There is no doubt about that. INEC itself set up a standard. INEC determined the guidelines. INEC committed to the people of Nigeria that this is how we are going to declare the result of this election.
“In fact, the chairman of INEC went abroad and said, ‘What we are going to do is that these results, when we get it, we would put it on IReV in real time.
“But guess what? When it was time for INEC to fulfill its guidelines — for certain reasons…we could talk about that– INEC failed to do what it said it would do.
“Now, it is right that if you look at the law, and I think the judges also affirmed, INEC has not really broken the law. But INEC has broken the trust of the Nigerian people.
“It is a problem for political legitimacy for people who came out of that system. So, there is a lot of cynicism, there is a lot of distrust [about those declared winners].”
Meanwhile, the two major candidates in the election Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of the Peoples Democratic Party, and Labour Party, respectively have challenged the PETC decision at the Supreme Court.
IREV porter.
Akande was the Senior Special Assistant to former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
He spoke on Friday on a Channels Television programme Politics Today, saying INEC destroyed the trust Nigerians had in the electoral umpire because Prof. Yakub Mahmood its Chairman had earlier promised to upload the result on its website.
The former presidential spokesman spoke less than 48 hours after the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
The five-man panel of the Court of Appeal had in their judgment upheld INEC’s power to decide the modality for announcing the election results.
INEC management, the PEPC said, did not break the law by its decision to transmit the results electronically.
Not a few Nigerians have however expressed their dissatisfaction with the judgment, saying it fell short of their expectations.
The Prof. Mahmood-led electoral body should have lived up to its promise to Nigerians, they insist.
Reacting Akande said, “It is important to establish something we cannot basically run away from. INEC came out of this election as a damaged good.
“There is no doubt about that. INEC itself set up a standard. INEC determined the guidelines. INEC committed to the people of Nigeria that this is how we are going to declare the result of this election.
“In fact, the chairman of INEC went abroad and said, ‘What we are going to do is that these results, when we get it, we would put it on IReV in real time.
“But guess what? When it was time for INEC to fulfill its guidelines — for certain reasons…we could talk about that– INEC failed to do what it said it would do.
“Now, it is right that if you look at the law, and I think the judges also affirmed, INEC has not really broken the law. But INEC has broken the trust of the Nigerian people.
“It is a problem for political legitimacy for people who came out of that system. So, there is a lot of cynicism, there is a lot of distrust [about those declared winners].”
Meanwhile, the two major candidates in the election Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of the Peoples Democratic Party, and Labour Party, respectively have challenged the PETC decision at the Supreme Court.
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