Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is under pressure to review the just concluded 2023 general elections where evidence of malpractices has been established.
Some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the country have asked the Commission to ensure that there is evidence of electoral malpractices and that the Commission should review allegations of voter suppression and vote buying based on provisions of the law.
The CSOs are Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Transparency International (TI) and the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC).
A report released by their leader, Awwal Musa Rafsanjani, said INEC should review elections where they are confirmed to be rigged.
“INEC must review all evidence of electoral malpractices presented before it,” Rafsanjani stated, in the report compiled by the TMG.
The CSOs said that insecurity, voter suppression and vote buying characterised the conduct of the just-concluded gubernatorial election.
The TMG said it deployed 768 roving observers across 768 local government areas in the country to observe the March 18 governorship and States Assembly elections, adding that voter-suppression and vote-buying was the order of the day.
It, however, noted improvements by INEC around logistics delivery and functionality of the BVAS, stating however that the same cannot be said about security on Election Day, as the 2023 polls turned out to be one of the most violence-ridden elections in Nigeria’s recent history.
