Our reporter| The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room on Friday said the presidential election held on February 25 cannot be considered credible.
The group, comprising civil society organisations (CSO) working in support of credible and transparent elections in a statement obtained by Alabingo.com, said the elections were marred by poor organisation and operational failure.
They asked that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) provide details of the results it collated for the elections.
“Contrary to expectations, the 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections were marred by very poor organization, severe logistical and operational failure, lack of essential electoral transparency, substantial disruption of voting, and several incidents of violence,” the statement reads.
“As a result, the process cannot be considered to have been credible. Given the lack of transparency, particularly in the result collation process, there can be no confidence in the results of these elections.
“In addition, there was very poor communication from INEC on election day and on its challenges with its processes; its citizens contact numbers did not work and even when there were challenges with uploads to the INEC Results Viewing (iReV) Portal.
“This is all the more disappointing since the elections were held in an atmosphere in which the people showed remarkable commitment to democracy, eagerly engaging in the electoral process and waiting patiently to vote in very difficult circumstances.
“In the light of the shortcomings outlined in this interim statement, the Situation Room calls on INEC to provide details of the process leading up to the results it collated for the elections. Situation Room demands that INEC provides information on why its promise to improve the transparency of the collation process through the introduction of the iReV Portal performed below expectation.
“Situation Room further demands that INEC conducts an audit of polling units where elections did not take place to establish the reasons for the failure. Situation Room also calls on INEC to note that public confidence in its capacity to run elections is gravely shaken, and that it would require extraordinary efforts for trust to be re-established.
“Situation Room calls on all political parties and aggrieved parties to pursue well established constitutional and legal remedies available to them and go through the democratic process of the courts.”
The group added that Nigerians should remain calm and express their displeasure in a peaceful and democratic way.
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