The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law has called for the judicial nullification of the November 11, 2023 ‘off-cycle’ Imo governorship election.
The group made the during a press conference in Enugu on Sunday, adding that poll should not only be nullified but an all-inclusive fresh Poll must be conducted under an atmosphere of popular participation including access to PVCs and secured voting environment and voting materials.
Emeka Umeagbalasi who, addressed the conference and flanked by Board Directors, said the election needed to be nullified to restore the voting and the general citizens’ confidence in the Judiciary and the country’s Electoral Process.
Umeagbalasi explained that crisis in Imo State started from the Supreme Court judgement that awarded election victory to someone that didn’t win election, and result is the killings going on in the state.
He said: “The facts and findings arising from our several investigations obtained before, during and after the widely condemned and rejected 2023 Imo Governorship Poll have shown how supposedly state actor or Government democratic institutions turned themselves into rigging tools in the election: thereby making the Poll “worse of the worst” in Nigeria’s Electoral Process and recent election history.
“Despite deployment of nine INEC Resident Electoral Commissioners and scores of INEC’s National Commissioners and several top security chiefs including serving Police DIGs, AIGs and CPs and Military and Spy Police Commanders accompanied by conscripted battalions from police crack squads, SSS, Army, Navy, Air Force and Paramilitaries and Government-controlled militias; the state actor democratic institutions ended up becoming and serving as rigging tools in the shambolic poll and in the end supervised brutal subversion of the sacred electoral wishes of the conscientious Imo voting population.”
He added, “As correctly predicted in our joint Press Conference of October 29, 2023 and Press Statement of Nov 9, 2023; not less than 70% or “490, 000 votes” announced by INEC as “total lawful votes cast” from the Nov 11, 2023 Imo Governorship Election were independently found to be composed of “harvested and written results”. It was also found that most of the “540,000 votes” allocated to the INEC-declared winner of the shambolic poll were harvested and written.
“Out of the remaining 210, 000 validly cast votes in all, at least 40% were independently found to be garnered through voter intimidation and corruption including vote-buying. The allocated “540,000 votes” to the INEC-declared winner also magically surpassed the total lawful votes cast arising from the 2023 Presidential Poll in the State (459,261) garnered by the trio of Peter Obi of Labor Party (352, 904), Ahmed Bola Tinubu of APC (66, 171) and Atiku Abubakar of PDP (30, 004). Of the three Governorship Polls held in Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa States on Nov 11, 2023; Imo State, with 27 LGAs and most difficult terrains (according to INEC’s official statements before the shambolic poll) magically became the fastest to be delivered in less than 24 hours as against Bayelsa’s three days with only 8 LGAs.
“In the Imo Governorship Poll, there were also no reports of election or result cancellation despite the State being the most security and safety challenged of the three election-held States at that time. Imo’s 27 LGAs were further found to have become the “fastest, freest and safest” to vote, collate and announce “results”.
“The State also became the South-East State with “largest turnout of voters” or “33% of the registered voting population of 2,2m” since Nigeria’s 1979 General Elections or in the past 45 years.”
The group, however, advocated total elimination of judicial technicalities from post-election dispensation of justice in Nigeria.
It also called for comprehensive reformation of the Nigeria’s electoral court and voting process including that will make provision for independent candidacy from presidency and governorship to State and Federal legislative seats.
Umeagbalasi averred that the electoral court processes and procedures and their handlers under demand should be modeled after the constitutional court system obtained in several developed and developing democratic countries.
Umeagbalasi noted that judicial technicalities have been found to be responsible for over 80% of brutal judicial subversion of the sacred electoral wishes of the conscientious Nigerian voting population.
“The standard practices in developed and developing Democratic Countries’ electoral courts are to fundamentally determine the field winners of the valid majority votes cast from among the total lawful cast votes emanating from polling centers or units through their manual or electronic voting systems.
” Time has also come for general and codified use of electronic and manual voting to be used side-by-side. Voting citizens must be allowed their sacred choice of using electronic voting or manual voting in Nigeria or any part thereof” he stated.
He stated that their investigative findings have revealed that the Anambra 2025 election will most likely witness political violence.
“Our recent investigative findings have revealed that “Anambra 2025” or Anambra’s off-circle Governorship Election of Nov 2025 is most likely to witness unprecedented political violence including aimless and targeted shootings and killings; and property destruction and other forms of violence against persons and properties-for purposes of creating a general atmosphere of insecurity and other unsafe conditions-aimed at scaring away many of the conscientious voting population to give room for “guided voting” or massive result fixing and harvesting arising from “dead votes”.
“Further findings showed that poll rigging enablers and their allied violent forces seeking to unseat the incumbent Governor Charles Soludo will launch their ferocious attacks into Anambra State from their Safe Haven in Imo State where they currently operate and terrorize unchecked, untracked, and uncaught.
“The enablers of the poll rigging and their allied violent forces operating from their Imo Safe Haven are remotely linked to state actor and non-state actor camps in the State-with those in the hands of the state actors being in majority” he stated.
