The Director of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, Sam Amadi, has stated that the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) compromised Nigeria’s 2023 elections.
Amadi, a former Executive Chairman and CEO of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), argued that it was INEC officials, not the All Progressives Congress (APC) as widely believed, who rigged the 2023 election.
He made this statement on Tuesday in Abuja during an interactive conference on electoral reform titled “Setting the Agenda,” held at Merit House and organized by the Civil Society Coalition for Sustainable Development.
Amadi said, “There is no lesson to learn from the last election in Ghana. Everything Ghana did right, we could also do. For example, we have improved in the timely delivery of electoral materials and in margin logistics.
“We have a much more reliable and digitalized electoral register. So, we’ve got everything right. But what we failed to get right is the fact that our electoral commission is partisan.
“Essentially, we are organizing elections in a third-world country where digital illiteracy is still a challenge, and where openness and transparency are lacking.
“For instance, many of us don’t even know the salaries of National Assembly members. Elsewhere, this kind of information is uploaded and easily accessible.
“Expenditure oversight is also critical. Money is receipted, spent, and verified by oversight offices. Many legislators in the UK have been sacked for spending public funds on luxury hotels instead of moderate accommodations or for giving money to girlfriends or family members.
“Similarly, in the United States, many lawmakers have been prosecuted for campaign finance violations. Donations meant for campaigns have been traced to their families. These examples show better transparency abroad. Crucially, they do not appoint partisan individuals to their electoral bodies.
“Here, we give the president the power to appoint his brothers, party members, and loyalists to the electoral commission, and then we expect accurate reporting after the votes are counted. Or that they will not switch off the server during the process.
“We could have had a perfect election in 2023, but we didn’t because the INEC chairman and his team essentially rigged the election.
“I have said it before: APC didn’t rig the election; INEC rigged it.”