We’ll review elections where its absolutely necessary – INEC Chair
Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has expressed the readiness of the commission to review the 2023 general elections as demanded by some political parties “where absolutely necessary”. The Peoples Democratic Party PDP and Labour Party LP had on Monday led some opposition parties to demand that the election be reviewed midway into the collation of the presidential results.
Yakubu had declined the request, on the grounds that the law was clear that the collation process has to be completed first before any process for review can be undertaken. However, at the resumption of the collation exercise on Tuesday, Yakubu said he will stick to the law.
“In accordance with the new Electoral Act particularly under Section 65 of the Electoral Act, we will review the election where it is absolutely necessary”, he declared.
Source: Vanguard
Don’t truncate electoral process – FG warns Obasanjo
The Federal Government has urged former President Olusegun Obasanjo not to truncate the 2023 General Elections with his inciting, self-serving and provocative letter on the elections. In a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said what the former President cunningly framed as an ‘appeal for caution and rectification’ is nothing but a calculated attempt to undermine the electoral process and a wilful incitement to violence.
The Minister expressed shock and disbelief that a former President could throw around unverified claims and amplify wild allegations picked up from the street against the electoral process. ”Though masquerading as an unbiased and concerned elder statesman, former President Obasanjo is in reality a known partisan who is bent on thwarting, by subterfuge, the choice of millions of Nigerian voters,” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed recalled that the former President, in his time, organized perhaps the worst election since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, hence he is the least qualified to advise a President whose determined effort to leave a legacy of free, fair, credible and transparent election is well acknowledged within and outside Nigeria. ”As the whole nation waits with bated breath for the result of last Saturday’s national elections, amid unnecessary tension created by professional complainants and political jesters, what is expected from a self-respecting elder statesman are words and actions that douse tension and serve as a soothing balm.
”Instead, former President Obasanjo used his unsolicited letter to insinuate, or perhaps wish for, an inconclusive election and a descent into anarchy; used his time to cast aspersion on electoral officials who are unable to defend themselves, while surreptitiously seeking to address his personal choice in the garb of the people’s choice. This is duplicitous,” he said.
Source: Vanguard
Police Detains House Leader For Electoral Violence
Kano state Police Command on Tuesday arrested the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Ado Doguwa for his alleged role in the killing of several persons and burning of the secretariat of New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) at his Tudun Wada country home during the just concluded polls.
The police had confirmed that at least three persons were killed when the campaign secretariat of the NNPP in Tudunwada was set ablaze. Two persons burnt to death during the crisis that broke out during the collation of the results of the Doguwa/Tudunwada House of Representatives election, which Doguwa was eventually declared winner. A security source told INDEPENDENT that Doguwa was picked up at the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport while about to board a flight to Abuja.
The source said that the report from the police leadership in Tudunwada stated that Doguwa personally led the thugs that set ablaze the NNPP secretariat where at least two persons were burnt to death. “He also used the service pistol of his orderly and fired and several persons. So we have arrested him in connection to murder and arson.”
“He is currently cooling his feet at the state Criminal Investigation Department,” the source, who prefers anonymity revealed. However, the spokesman of the Kano Police Command, SP Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, did not respond to call to his number.
Source: Independent.ng