Nothing wrong with 2023 Presidential election -Plateau REC, Dr. Agundu
Written by Joey Shekwonuzhibo on March 13, 2023
By Gilbert Joseph @Jozefgiovanni
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, resident electoral commissioner in Plateau state, Dr. Oliver Agundu says the commission was been unfairly assessed on the recently concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections.
Dr. Agundu made this known during an appearance on JayFm’s Let’s Talk Programme on Monday, 13 March 2023.
Acknowledging that there were minor hitches experienced in some areas, the INEC REC says it was not enough to take away the credibility of the entire exercise.
According to him, “What we are saying is that this is the most transparent election in our history.
‘There are evidence to this, one of the issues that people have raised about this election is the failure to transmit results from the polling units. But many people who understand the workings of the system would admit that transmission does not in any way impact the transparency of this election.
At every level, agents of political parties were represented and they endorsed the results before they were taken to Abuja.”
Commenting on the spread of fake news, he said it was rather unfortunate that certain individuals came up with misleading figures to say that some candidates won in certain areas by a landslide, describing such as only a figment of their imaginations.
The Plateau INEC REC said, “In Plateau state for example, as at the time we were collating results, we were on the 9th local government when one of my classmates in Washington forwarded to me a result of Plateau state Presidential election where the candidate of the Labor Party reportedly scored 1.2Million votes!
“It was very shocking, and as at the time I went and presented report of the election in Plateau state, people were shocked, I also saw a video of someone accusing INEC of slashing over 700, 000 votes from the Labor Party. It sounds funny because no sensible person should imagine that that can happen.
What is the total number of accredited voters that came out to vote on election day that only one party went away with over 1.2million votes?”
He lamented the failure of parties to accept results across all levels, choosing instead to select those to accept, siting examples of the senatorial and House of Representatives elections where the 8 political parties that won have been issued their certificates of return, (CoR).
While admitting that people especially political parties have the right to disagree with the outcome of elections, it was not a yardstick to spread falsehood against the commission.
Dr. Agundu assured that the commission would continue to do its best in delivering creditably in subsequent elections especially the forthcoming governorship and state assembly exercise.
