Members of the Citizens United for Democracy, a civil society organisation, have accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of breaking its own rules and the peace accord by refusing to transmit election results electronically during the Presidential and National Assembly elections.
The group which staged a protest in Abuja on Wednesday, called for the cancellation of the election, noting Nigerians have lost hope in INEC to conduct a free and fair election.
They called on international communities to intervene and conduct a fresh election that will reflect the will of Nigerians.
Isaac Balami one of the conveners of the group while addressing journalists during the protest in Abuja, said if INEC doesn’t have money to conduct election, the Nigerian youth will raise money for them.
He said “for the first time, in the history of Nigeria, election was held and the people that claim they won have not been able to celebrate because they know they did not win”.
Furthermore, Balami said “INEC themselves broke the peace accord here in Nigeria, it is a big shame, it is so embarrassing, this is the wrong generation to play with, we have gone through hardship, stress, insecurity, suppression and intimidation, we cannot give up at this time, the battle has just began, this is not the youth to play with”.
He said the INEC Chairman told the whole world at Chatham House, in Abuja, lagos that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) was going to work.
“That was why educated Nigerians, even the once that never went to school, some flew back from diaspora to vote only for us to realise that when they saw that some parties was leading the APC, they switched off the BIVAS, and they began to do what happened in 1999.
“They rigged the election, there was no election, I was in Maiduguri, I took videos and pictures in over 35 polling units, what happened there was a shame”, he stated.
He demanded that “fresh election conducted, let the international community help us and conduct election because INEC cannot be trusted. If this demands are not met, we will continue protesting.
“Nigerians came out in their millions to vote for the candidate of their choice, it is a pity that the leaders of this country and INEC cannot see the handwriting on the wall that this is 21st century and this is the wrong generation to play with”, Balami added.
Also, Tanko Yunusa one of the conveners, said “today Nigerian democracy has been undermined, we as people have come out under citizen United for democracy to challenge this. We were promised that there will be a free and fair election, unfortunately, what we saw was a murder of our democracy, and we are saying no.
“We were promised that INEC will transmit results after voting and counting of results, that was not done, what we saw that after the election, only two results were transmitted live, while the other once were not transmitted. We have proof that votes were being allocated to various states”.