INEC Connived With Elite To Rob Nigeria In Last Polls – Sowore

Until his foray into politics, Omoyele Sowore was a human rights activist. Owing to his engagements for the betterment and amelioration of the lots of Nigerians, Sowore has had several brushes with the Nigerian state. Not someone to be pushed aside in the civil society community, the Ondo State-born activist four years ago became a politician by joining others to float the African Action Congress (AAC), the platform upon which he has contested the presidency of the nation twice. He was one of the 18 gladiators who put themselves forward to lead the country as the successor to the incumbent Muhammadu Buhari whose tenure of two terms of eight years expire next month.

Characteristically, Sowore carpeted the process and its outcome, saying in unmistakable terms that it was a charade all skewed against Nigerians by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to favour the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). According to him, the last elections that have thrown up Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as President-elect was anything but free, fair, transparent and credible because the process fell short of the expectations of Nigerians and other stakeholders across the globe. Sowore stated that though he saw it coming, he had alerted the world to the inherent flaws contained in the technology that was eventually deployed for the exercise.

“I warned Nigerians and the international community to the effect that the election had been compromised even before it was held. I noticed that the website and the technology were not powerful enough to withstand the rigours of the assignment,” he said. While stating that the flaws were deliberately contrived by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to favour the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), he added that his fears became manifest when the operations of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) became compromised on election day. “I had reports from our field that the only thing the BVAS machine could only do on election day to accredit voters was just to take their photos. It could not read the fingerprints of those who came forward to vote. “What INEC officials eventually did was to input information of voters into the machines instead of the machine to capture them,” he said. He stated that the outcome was predetermined to arrive at the eventual emergence of Tinubu as the president-elect, saying with that the incoming administration has deficit of legitimacy as it was not popularly voted for by Nigerians. The Ondo born politician however ruled out the possibility of seeking redress through the courts, saying “Elections ideally should be decided at the ballot and not through the courts because I believe that it is only the people who can decide their leaders during election,” he said. Sowore who waxed emotional, stated that it would amount to an exercise in futility for him to seek legal redress saying those who had done so in the past didn’t succeed. “When you look at the historical journey of the country, the law courts have not done much to right the wrongs of this kind of electoral injuries in the past and why is this one going to be an exception?” he asked. Despite this setback, he however stated his resolve to keep pushing his am- bition to lead the country, adding that the process of liberating the people would be through revolution, saying those who enjoy certain privileges from the current rot would not surrender so easily without a fight. “The only option open to Nigerians as a people today is to stage a revolution. Nigerians must decide to put a stop to the shenanigans going on in the country by staging the revolution and take the country away from these wicked politicians,” he said.

(New Telegraph)