Osita Chidoka, a chieftain of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has criticized the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over its conduct of the 2023 presidential election.
Politics Nigeria recalls that INEC had declared Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), winner of the election despite irregularities in the process.
The commission also failed to do a real-time transmission of election results as promised.
In an interview with ChannelsTV on Sunday night, Chidoka described INEC as a huge disgrace.
“INEC is a monumental disgrace. INEC is an organisation I am ashamed to be associated with as a Nigerian,” Chidoka declared.
“I came on this programme and called for third-party verification of the INEC system so that we are sure that on election day what is going to happen that day would not lead to a glitch. On election day, INEC said there was a glitch,” the former Aviation minister said.
According to him, despite INEC’s inability to test the election results portal on a large scale, the electoral body’s defence is equally shameful.
“Despite not testing the system, it is a shame that INEC went to court to argue that not complying with its regulation does not make it a ground to cancel an election,” he noted.
“As far as he is concerned, INEC’s struggle with such an issue paints the country badly in the comity of nations and wonders why Nigeria cannot emulate countries like India and Indonesia which have large populations but conduct better polls.”
