Laolu Akande, former spokesperson of former vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, has said the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to electronically transmit the results of the 2023 presidential election has shattered the trust of Nigerians in the electoral umpire.
Mr Akande stated this while speaking on Channels TV’s current affairs programme, Politics Today, on Friday.
He said the failure of the commission to upload the election results on the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IREV, made it emerge from the electoral process as ‘damaged goods’.
While acknowledging that the electoral umpire didn’t break any law, he stressed that the commission has eroded the trust of Nigerians.
He said, “It is important to establish something we cannot basically run away from. INEC came out of this election as damaged goods.
“There is no doubt about that. INEC itself set up a standard. INEC determined the guidelines. INEC committed to the people of Nigeria that this is how we are going to declare the result of this election.
“In fact, the chairman of INEC went abroad and said, ‘What we are going to do is that these results, when we get it, we would put it on IReV in real time.
“But guess what? When it was time for INEC to fulfill its guidelines — for certain reasons…we could talk about that– INEC failed to do what it said it would do.
“Now, it is right that if you look at the law, and I think the judges also affirmed, INEC has not really broken the law. But INEC has broken the trust of the Nigerian people.
“It is a problem for political legitimacy for people who came out of that system. So, there is a lot of cynicism, there is a lot of distrust [about those declared winners].
“INEC is responsible for that.”
