*•Activists, democracy scholars report electoral umpire to US Vice President, Sec of State, Assist Sec of State and key US lawmakers

The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has unveiled a 23-Page Special Investigative Report on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in which it “frontally and statistically unmasked the present leadership” of the commission “and all its rigging plots ahead of Nigeria’s all-important Presidential Election fixed for 25^th Feb 2023.”

“This follows the successful completion of our months-long Special Investigative Report on INEC regarding what the Commission is really cooking ahead of the 2023 General Elections particularly the 25^th Feb 2023 Presidential Poll. The Special Investigative Report had been put together using INEC’s released data and related verified others compiled by Intersociety since May 2021. The Report was finally and successfully completed on 28^th Sept 2022 and updated on 4^th October 2022. The cardinal objective of the Report is to expose how INEC hatched or plotted 50 major poll rigging plots ahead of the 2023 Presidential Poll, successfully executed 27 during 2022 Continuous Voters’ Registration (CVR) and lined up 23 others for execution between now and Presidential Election Day of 25^th Feb 2023,” Intersociety said Thursday in a statement.

According to the statement, “INEC’s dastardly acts above mentioned are deeply contrary to Intersociety’s firm position that the Nigeria’s Presidential Poll can only be adjudged popular, inclusive, violence free and credible if it is mandatorily and inexcusably conducted by ensuring that all citizens of voting age in Nigeria regardless of their tribe, religion, class or gender are non-discriminatorily registered to vote and issued with permanent voters’ cards; protected to conscientiously vote candidates of their choice on Presidential Election Day without threats of fear and violence and their votes protected and announced as voted”.

The statement was signed in Enugu, Eastern Nigeria by four principal officers: Emeka Umeagbalasi, Criminologist and Board Chair, Chinwe Umeche Esquire, Head of Democracy and Good Governance Program, Obianuju Joy Igboeli Esquire, Head of Civil Liberties and Rule of Law Program and Chidinma Udegbunam Esquire, Head of Campaign and Publicity Department

Other Highlights: The Report, particularly compiled free of charge as a working research document for the International College of Human Rights and Democracy Scholars; is also our priceless contribution to successful, violence free, inclusive, popular and credible Presidential Election in 2023. The Report is also to ensure Nigeria’s smooth and peaceful 2023 national and sub-national transfer of power or power transition. Contrarily, what we found in the course of compilation of the 23-Page Special Investigative Report was mindboggling and reprehensively unheard of. This is to the extent that INEC and its Chairman, National and Resident Electoral Commissioners have gravely compromised the coming 25^th Feb 2023 Presidential Poll and still go ahead parading themselves as “saintly unbiased umpire” before Nigerians and respected world Democracies and Super Powers. The Report also found that owing to high profile docility and compromises by Democracy CSOs that are supposed to be independently exposing and checkmating the excesses of INEC and its key appointees; in addition to litany of baggage and character minuses on the part of leading political players and their parties; INEC and its key appointees have seen them as an opportunity for impunity and incorrigibility. The Commission has also hidden under false “saintly unbiased umpire” status and used its accredited Democracy CSOs and Democracy activists to solicit and gain undeserved international favors and recognitions including blindfolding western powers and institutions into doling out hundreds of millions of dollars annually especially during electioneering “for delivery of popular, free and credible elections in Nigeria or any part thereof” which have severally turned out to be a mirage in the end. The Report also highlighted 50 major rigging plots hatched by the Commission and identified 12 major polling rigging Nigerian States to watch in the Feb 25, Presidential Poll. Full details of the 23-Page Report will be made public in segments as time goes on.

What Inter-College Told US Govt And Key Lawmakers About Nigeria’s INEC

The International College of Democracy and Human Rights Scholars based in Enugu, Nigeria; a recently formed intellectual pressure group involving 132 expert activists including a respected Swiss and an American int’l Democracy and Human Rights Campaigners, 41 Professors, 20 Doctorate Degree Holders, 30 Lawyers, 19 Religious Leaders, 14 key Eastern Nigerian CSO Leaders, Criminologists, Security Experts, and other specialist activists, has prayed the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, US Sec of State Hon Antony Blinken and Assistant US Secretary of State and Head of Bureau for African Affairs, Hon Ms Molly Phee to ensure all-inclusive, participatory, secure and violence and discrimination free credible Presidential Poll in Nigeria fixed for Feb 25, 2023.

The College had particularly prayed the US top Government functionaries to ensure that US citizens’ tax payers funds running into hundreds of millions of dollars annually doled to INEC for delivery of credible polls in Nigeria are at all times tied to electoral process accountability. The attention of the US Government top functionaries was particularly to drawn to a latest Special Investigative Report by Intersociety. These were contained in special letters to them dated 30^th September 2022, titled: Nigeria’s 2023 Polls: Exposing 50 Poll Rigging Plots By Nigeria’s Electoral Commission And Call For US Government Funding Supports To Be Uncompromisingly Tied To Credible Electoral Accountability. Among the signatories to the special letters are a leading US Democracy Campaigner, John Gregg, , a leading Swiss Rights and Democracy Campaigner, Bernhard Wanner, a Renowned Diplomat and Former Nigerian Envoy to South Africa, Ambassador Uche-Ajulu Okeke, Chairman of World Igbo Congress, USA, Prof Anthony Ejiofor, a Renowned Physicist and Board Chair of Ekwenche Research Institute, USA, Prof Justin Akujieze, a University Don, Prof Jerry Chukwuokolo, a Renowned Human Rights Campaigner and Former Government Commissioner in Ebonyi State, Chief Abia Onyeike, a leading Computer Security Engineer, Ikenweoke Nwandu, a leading Researcher/Investigator and Board Chair of Intersociety, Emeka Umeagbalasi, South-East Chair of the Civil Liberties Organization, Comrade Aloysius Emeka Attah, a frontline Legal Practitioner and Executive Director of Int’l Human Rights and Equity Defense Foundation, Justus Uche Ijeoma Esquire, an iconic New Media Expert, Chief Ositadinma Agu and Renowned Doctors of Law and respected Feminists, Dr. Adaora Nwamaka Iguh and Dr Mrs. Ngozi-Chuma Umeh, among others.

In similar letters dated 30^th of Sept and 3^rd Oct 2022, the attention of sixteen (16) key US Lawmakers was drawn regarding the subject matter. The letters were respectively addressed to Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Martin Heinrich, Tim Scott, Dianne Fienstein, Tim Kelly, James M. Inhofe and Ben Lujan. Other recipients of the letters are Reps Adam Schiff, Al Green, Christopher Smith, Jim Jordan, James Clyburn, Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, Congressman Dean Philips, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries and Congressman Jamaal Bowman and Korol Wilson M., Nigeria Desk Officer, Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. The letters to US top Government functionaries and key Lawmakers had specifically drawn their attention to the exposed 50 rigging plots by Nigeria’s INEC which saw 77.4m truly Nigerian citizens of voting age disenfranchised and the independently estimated 15m illegal aliens, minors and ghost names enfranchised as “registered voters in Nigeria”; as captured in the 23-Page ‘Special Investigative Report on INEC’ by Nigeria’s Intersociety; a well known and respected democracy and rights research and investigative group.

The letters had also recalled that Her Excellency, Vice President Kamala Harris of the United States had in a meeting with Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on 2^nd September 2022 at US White House, among others, announced “the US Government support for a credible, transparent, secure and safe electoral process and pledged to advance the US Government longstanding partnership with Independent National Electoral Commission and Nigerian Civil Society with a fresh support of $25m in (2023) election support as well as additional $2m to help support a safer and more secure elections environment, subject to Congressional approval”. While thanking the US Government and the US Congress for such huge financial supports to Nigeria including pledging to assist the country with $627m in coming year, the College called for total review of the 2023 ‘Credible Poll Delivery Support Funds to INEC’ and uncompromisingly tying of future funding supports and personality recognitions to electoral process accountability. The College also called on the US top Government functionaries and the Congress to comprehensively investigate INEC Chair and the Commission’s National and Resident Commissioners based on Intersociety’s 23-Page Special Investigative Report and sanction them accordingly including blocking them from traveling to US and Western countries as well as monitoring their private finances, investments and lifestyles. The United States Government and the Congress were also prayerfully called upon to mount sufficient pressure on Nigeria’s INEC to non-discriminatorily issue registered citizens of the country presently denied permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) numbering over 32m with their PVCs to enable them participate and vote in the all-important Feb 25, 2023 Presidential Election in Nigeria. The College also demanded respectfully that Nigeria’s INEC be internationally compelled to reopen its registration centers to fully enfranchise and issue PVCs to 7m-11m successful online registrants, discriminatorily disenfranchised by the Commission during the recent Continuous Voters’ Registration (CVR). The Commission must also be internationally compelled to wipe out all traces of registered minors, illegal aliens and ghost names presently estimated at 15m from Nigeria’s National Register of Voters.

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