From Daniel Dauda, Jos


The former Nigeria's minister of youths and sports development, Solomon Dalung has accused Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for working against the provision of the electoral act during the 25th February, 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections.

Dalung who contested House of Representatives seat for Langtang North/South Federal constituency under the platform of Social Democratic Party, SDP, admitted that the electoral umpire, INEC squandered the confidence of Nigerians and must address the country immediately before 11th March, 2023 governorship and state Assembly polls.

He said INEC failure to reached out to Nigerians on time is "going to place the fundamental credibility question on the entire election process.And that would rapture the stability of the country.

The SDP chieftain while speaking to newsmen Thursday in Jos, on state of the nation challenged INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, to remembered the promised he made to Nigerians in respect to BVAS and transmission of results from polling units.

According to Dalung," INEC have mobilized Nigerians successful to believed in the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System, BVAS, system which has been tested in some States like; Ekiti, Osun, Anambra and some bye election in Kogi and it has proven and successful end the confidence of Nigerians.

"But what turns out to be the situation on the 25th February, 2023 appeared to be a negation on the impression created to Nigerians, a this is generating a lot of tension in the country as so many complains trailing the collation of the results, the deployment of BVAS and then violence that has  characterized some part of Nigeria", he stated.

Dalung also vowed that, " as one of the actor who contested the 2023 election, the circumstances surrounding my lost and the choice left for me now is I would test judicially.

"If you take the provision of the electoral act as it has relate to the downloading the result. Currently if you go to the INEC portal and look at the result of Federal House of Representatives Langtang North and South, you can only find in Langtang North only 5 wards were downloaded and those 5 wards were about 30℅ of the polling units.

" On the other side of Langtang South it is the same situation, meaning that there is non compliance with the provision of the electoral law which said results shall be downloaded at the polling units. We also discovered that about 600 ballot papers for House of Representatives was missing on the eve of election in Langtang South.

"Some of this results that declared by INEC is in sharp contrast and disagreement with the results our agents are holding. In one of the polling unit where they declared result we scored only 20 votes but our agent on the other side is holding a result where we scored 141 votes."

He acknowledged that they speculations originating mostly by INEC that some people are trying to hake it's server is nothing but clearly demonstration of failure by INEC.

While bearing his mind on  the called for the cancelation of the polls and resignation of INEC chairman Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu emanated at the quarter of the society, Dalung opines that, calling for the resignation of INEC boss now is toxic way of advocating for anarchy because you can't ask the referee to abandoned the match midway.

"So you will be calling for chaos. He would have to concludes. It is at the end of the conclusion of his exercise that we can evaluating him and be congratulating him with a sack if that is what he deserved. But asking him to resigned now is the same thing as given a mad man matches in the fueling station!