A former spokesperson for the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Campaign Council for the 2023 election, Dele Farotimi, has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to tender an apology to Nigerians over its failure at the February 25th presidential election.
INEC’s spokesman, Festus Okoye, had attributed the failure of the Bimodal Voter Registration Systems (BVAS) to transmit results of the presidential election in real-time to the commission’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV) to a “technical glitch”.
Okoye, in his defence, had said the IReV portal worked for the National Assembly, Governorship, and State Assembly polls.
But speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday, Farotimi stated that everything worked during the election except the electoral body.
He said: “All the evidences are very clear and it showed very clearly that everything that should work on that day worked except INEC.
The integrity of INEC as an institution went on exile.”
Farotimi, an ally of Labour Party’s Peter Obi, who came third in the poll, said INEC said Okoye should have offered an apology to Nigerians for the failure of the electoral umpire to fulfill its promise to transmit election results electronically to all through the polls.
“INEC is a public body established by law and bound to work according to the law. It advertised its guidelines…the advertisement of BVAS and IReV and everything. INEC was quite vociferous in explaining to Nigerians and assuring us of what would happen with the system.
In a sane environment where people are still governed by reason, the likes of Mr. Festus Okoye should either have resigned or be somewhere writing a statement explaining to Nigerians what happened. Glitch? Is it a glitch in the human brain? A glitch in the technical system or a glitch occasioned by the complete shutdown of human conscience?” the Labour Party chieftain queried.
