According to Reuters, Premium Times, BBC and other media, the tally of votes as released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) showed Bola Tinubu, the flagbearer of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party, leading with about 5,407,513 votes, while his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar, the flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who, as of the time of Reuters’ reporting had about 4,068,768 votes. Peter Obi of the Labor Party, so far, had secured 2,295,458 votes.

As the media reported further, both Atiku and Obi had rejected the result, calling on the Electoral Commission to stop the process. Unconfirmed report noted that the representatives of Atiku and Obi had not only left the venue, but had also called for the process to be truncated and a new election called.

If all the above are true, one cannot but wonder why these opposition parties are rejecting the result of the elections whose processes are still ongoing.

I am not in support of any of the candidates; Tinubu, Atiku and Obi; however, I recognize their rights to the office and respect other Nigerians’ rights to vote for any candidate other than my preferred candidate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, who lost at the presidential flagbearer’s primary election last year.

Are there not constitutional provisions for airing election-related grievances in the Electoral Act and why are opposition parties rejecting the result of an election whose result is still being collated at the national level?

Evidence and corroboration available to me showed that there was a lack of efficient planning, especially in critical stages of the election and in effectively informing the public in the process. The European Union observer mission confirmed this. Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa, representing the Commonwealth observer mission, noted that INEC failed to upload all election results. As at 3.00PM February 27, 2023, INEC uploaded results from 66,167 polling units out of a total of 178,846 on its website.

While the above showed inefficiency, none of them showed anything like rigging, vote-buying, violence, or any significant reasons that could have altered the results in any significant manner. In other words, none of these problems justify the actions of both Atiku and Obi. None is a ground for calling for electoral cancellation or truncation. Unless Atiku and Obi are of the opinion that only they can win the election.

It is my understanding that INEC has come out publicly to take responsibility for the reported problems, with INEC officials admitting in a statement that “We take full responsibility for the problems and regret the distress that they have caused the candidates, political parties and the electorate.”

Yes, opposition parties reserve the rights to accept this apology or not. They however have no rights to call for the truncation of the process. To claim such a right, opposition parties would need to provide evidence that the problem affected them in any significant way. So, I consider as irresponsible the statement credited to Dino Melaye that “the electoral process has been rigged … and we are completely disassociating ourselves from it”. We have seen this from the PDP before. Elder Orubebe was crying like a child before the global audience in 2015 at the INEC National Results Collation Center in Abuja. Similar statement by Akin Oshuntokun, Obi’s campaign spokesperson, is equally unfortunate. As reported, he also said that the Labor Party “regret to say that we have lost confidence in the results being collated and announced” and “call on the INEC to … follow its own guidelines or completely cancel the entire election.”

Understandably, Melaye is a garrulous and loquacious person who cannot separate commonsense from the law, certainly Oshuntokun whose brother is a renowned professor of African History, should do better. Delayed process, technological failure, and some of the reported issues are no grounds for electoral cancellation. Except for the optics, miseducating and misleading voters by the PDP and LP are acts that run contrary to the laws.

By law, a candidate cannot claim to have won and cannot win any state just by having the highest number of votes cast. To win a presidential election in Nigeria, a candidate must not only win the overall votes, but also a certain percentage of total votes cast in a certain number of the states of the federation. So, with Tinubu leading in the ongoing process, it is not indicative of him winning the presidency until other conditions are met. Just for clarity, a candidate can win the total vote and still lose the election if such candidate fails to satisfy other conditions laid out in the laws.

Contrary to popular claim of INEC being partial to the Labor Party by not including its Logo and Names in some ballot papers, INEC excused itself by noting that the party itself was responsible for these, as it submitted its Logo without the party’s name and in those ballots where there was no Labor Party’s logo on the ballot papers, the party fielded no candidate. As INEC noted, the official logo of the Labor Party does not carry the name of the party, only its slogan -“Forward Ever”. As agreed with all parties, it is the responsibility of parties to submit to INEC for printing on ballot papers their party logos and names as they want them printed on the ballot papers.

INEC’s claims were backed up by the Head of Transparency International in Nigeria and chairman of the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Auwal Ibrahim Musa Rafsanjani, who, speaking with the BBC, noted that “INEC announced a deadline for political parties to submit the names of all their candidates.

If a party does not provide names of candidates at the stipulated time, then the party is responsible for the omission of its logo on ballots.” In addition, he noted that “INEC shouldn’t have to break its rules for any party, that may lead to impunity. It could also create a legal crisis for the electoral commission. People are watching and monitoring the entire process.”

To consider yet another example, videos on social media showed some parliamentary ballot papers with Labor Party logo and names of candidates missing on them and, this has been presented to Nigerians as evidence of collusion between INEC and other parties, most especially the APC/Tinubu.

The ballot papers were not misprinted or printed out of collusion with any party. Rather, Labor Party failed to submit the names of its candidates for these constituencies. Contrary to the party’s claim that it obtained a court order compelling INEC to include Labor Party candidates on the ballot papers for these parliamentary elections, Labor Party failed to produce any court order and INEC was also not served with any invitation or court order, even a day before the election day. Rather than producing the court order it claimed to have, the Labor Party went on claiming that INEC’s refusal was aimed at disenfranchising its voters.

By its laws, INEC has strict guidelines on putting candidates’ names on ballot papers. These laws, which are all known to both parties and candidates, include to remove or omit a candidate or political party’s name if the candidate or party did not conduct or participate in primary elections for the seat. Also, where a candidate or party conducted primary elections without INEC’s participation and monitoring, INEC will also not print the party’s or candidate’s name on the ballot box.

In addition to the above, review of INEC laws showed that where parties invited INEC to monitor primaries, but the party failed to upload party flagbearer’s names into INEC’s online portal at the stipulated time to do so, INEC will not include the name of such candidate and the logo of such party on the ballot papers for election.

All of the above are known to parties beforehand and claims of collusion by Labor Party is not only self-serving and deceitful, but also aimed at heating up the polity and sowing confusion.

So, Oshuntokun should be bold to tell his party members and voters that the party failed them and stop heating up the polity unnecessarily.

None of the aspirants can claim not to know this and it is on this ground that I called both Atiku and Obi bad losers.

NB

Election results update February 28, 2023 2.14 AM Chicago time