Many Nigerians have continued to raise questions over the 2023 presidential election, with some still bitterly complaining about the way and manner the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, violated the Electoral law and its own guidelines in announcing the winner.

The February 25, 2023 election would have been a great improvement on the 2015 elections if INEC had conducted the exercise as it promised to do. In the estimation of many people, the June 12, 1993 election conducted by Professor Humphrey Nwosu’s National Electoral Commission, NEC, remains the best because it was the freest, fairest and most acceptable. Voters physically lined up behind parties and candidates of their choice, and counting of votes was transparent.

The 2015 elections which produced President Muhammadu Buhari, though conducted with the PVCs and Smart Card Readers, SCRs, witnessed a lot of abuses, such as the deployment of the Incident Forms and the reported permission of children and foreigners to vote, especially in the North. Despite incidences of disenfranchisements in some parts of the country, however, the election was accepted because the apparent loser, President Goodluck Jonathan, conceded and peacefully handed over power.

The introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, by the Professor Mahmood Yakubu-led INEC has been the game-changer in our recent elections. The technology gave us acceptable elections in Anambra, Ekiti and Osun states. It also performed creditably where it was properly operated in the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections. Virtually gone was the incidence of ballot padding. BVAS showed the difference between the real numbers represented by the number of those who voted, and the “imaginary” ones: number of registered voters.

The BVAS also made it possible for new strong contender parties such as Peter Obi’s Labour Party, LP, and Rabiu Kwankwaso’s New Nigerian People’s Party, NNPP, to dislodge even governors going to the Senate. A commercial motorcyclist and a community vigilante operative, won elections to the House of Representatives on the platform of the LP!

INEC failed itself and the nation through the mystery of the presidential election result non-transmission fiasco.  Nigeria missed an opportunity to become a reference point in conducting tech-driven fool-proof elections in Africa and beyond.

Nigerians are still waiting to hear INEC’s untold story on why it failed to transmit the presidential election as promised. Its “independence” is still largely a mirage. It is still susceptible to manipulations by the powers that be. Until the appointment of the leadership of the Commission is severed from the Executive’s control, things like this should always be expected.

We must implement the Justice Mohammed Uwais Panel Report to foster INEC’s independence. A player in the game must never appoint the referee!