Off-season Guber Election: CSOs, Political Parties Call for Credible Polls 

The group made the appeal in a communique issued at the end of a roundtable held in Abuja on Monday.

The communique, which was signed by 14 persons, was presented by the National Chairman of Action Alliance (AA), Mr Kenneth Udeze.

“The national roundtable calls for support of all stakeholders, particularly the new security chiefs to the Chairman of INEC for the upcoming November governorship elections in three States.

“This is so that the performance at the general elections will be surpassed.

“While thanking all participants for their sincere contributions, we urge all citizens in public office to continue to do their best at all times in the interest of Nigeria.

“The national roundtable, therefore, frowns at the call for the removal of the INEC Chairman from office and unanimously rejects the call as being self-serving, myopic and a setback to gains made in the electoral process.

“The roundtable believes that for INEC to be truly independent, the appointment and removal of the leadership of the commission should not be at the whims and caprices of the Executive.

“Until the approval of the National Assembly is sought and obtained, the chairman of INEC cannot be removed.

“The national roundtable, having analyzed the pre-election, election day and post-election outcomes of the elections, and without prejudice to the ongoing petitions at the tribunals, gives INEC a pass mark.

“We unanimously pass a vote of confidence on the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, for his outstanding conduct of the 2023 general election and condemn, in the strongest of terms, the attacks on his personality and the calls for his removal from office,” the communique stated.

Meanwhile, in her remarks, the Executive Director, Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA), Ms Faith Nwadishi, said that the 2023 Election was one of the elections where “we had one or two positives and one of two negatives, as with all other elections.

“Preparatory to that election, a lot of us put in a lot to ensure that we had the kind of result.

“We depended a lot on technology. And we lost sight of the fact that technology is not 100 per cent sail through. INEC itself also recognized and identified that that happened.

“Not only did INEC recognize that that happened, INEC also recognized that its own staff contributed to undermining the process.

“We commend them for being proactive enough to begin to prosecute those staff.

“We are calling on the commission to continue to make election progress:

“We need to critically examine the election that has gone before and make recommendations for it to be better.

“This is time for the political class to look at interpreting inclusion of women into the electoral process.”