The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has decoded what it described as Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo’s “harvest of outburst and criticism of Peter Obi, former Anambra Gov and Presidential Candidate of the Labor Party (LP)”.

The “irreducible minimum” of it, Intersociety said in a statement issued Wednesday, Nov 16, 2022 in Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria, is that “Peter Obi won’t and will never win the 2023 Presidential Election”.

It added that “the irreducible minimum” of the Governor’s harvest of outburst and criticism of the former Anambra Gov is his seemingly too much concentration on populism and crowd pulling ahead of his 2023 Presidential bid. Gov Soludo’s outburst and criticism of Obi does not hold water other than “bitter truth” in Gov’s “Obi won’t and will never win 2023 Presidential” bitter truth message”.

Intersociety in the statement signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chair; Chinwe Umeche Esquire, Head, Democracy and Good Governance Program; and Chidinma Udegbunam Esquire, Head, Campaign and Publicity Department, urged Obi not to be discouraged by Soludo’s position but to rather feel challenged to work harder to prove him wrong.

According to the statement, “Intersociety sees it as a metaphor for “work extremely hard beyond your crowd pulling popularity rating otherwise the hawks will shame you at poll and brutally rig you out”.

“On economic aspect of Gov Soludo’s attack, Intersociety makes bold to say that it does not take a rocket science or professorship of economics to know that it requires lifetime Papal canonization and posthumous beatification as a reward for a public office holder in African setting who transparently and accountably governs his or her social clime by positively touching most of the critical infrastructures and social services and ends up not borrowing or mortgaging his or her social clime or state into one of the ‘highly indebted poor states” who also goes extra mile in investing billions in numerous quoted companies and financial institutions and in the end, leaves his or her state with tens of billions worth of cash in the state coffers. These feats are professorially beyond castigation in the professorial field of economics. It is also unheard of that ‘a debtor is valued much more than a creditor both in oracular and modern Igbo Community; neither has it been heard that a serial debtor is made a king in place of a creditor. Corporately, a company that finishes its financial year in debt and liabilities can never thrive and survive more than another that finishes in credit and surpluses.

“Therefore, the “irreducible minimum” of Gov Soludo’s harvest of outburst and criticism of Peter Obi is Obi’s 2023 Presidential bid. Although malice and grudges are not ruled out in Gov’s harvest of outburst and criticism of Obi, but truth be told, the Gov had told Peter Obi the bitter truth and as far as Intersociety is concerned, Obi must not be blindfolded or dismissive of Gov’s bitter truth. As a matter of fact, it is for Obi to see it as a realistic criticism and not as that to be ignored. Obi must not only constructively transform Gov Soludo’s criticism into practical political action but also re-jig and race back to his tactical drawing board. Owing to the fact that Nigeria is highly polarized and deeply divided along ethno-religious lines and bearing in mind the ethno-religious radicalization of the country’s political space with institutional and public office corruption speedily becoming intractable, Peter Obi as a leading presidential candidate in Nigeria must fully be abreast and conversant with the realities on the ground including understanding the extent of bastardization and corruption of the National Register of Voters and voting system necessitating boasts by Muslim-Muslim Presidential Flag-bearers and their supporters to win at all costs . Nigeria’s presidential electoral process has become the most technically crooked in the world. The country also has a high propensity of demographic manipulation, distortions and concoctions. The National Register of Voters is very unclean and dotted with pollutant viruses. Presidential Elections in Nigeria are not won by populism.

“Winning the same requires 60% tactical or strategic approaches including unmasking and understanding the ethno-religious composition and percentage of those going to participate and vote in the Presidential Poll. Aggregate of 30% populism is required for candidate’s popularity/populism and 10% channeled into international diplomatic and other interfaces.

“Statistically, there are not less than 12 States where anything goes/everything possible during presidential polls; located in the hinterlands of the North-East and North-West where BVAS and other voting biometrics can be collapsed leading to reversion to widespread manual voting such as mass thumb-printing of ballot papers and legitimization of results. Computers can also be manipulatively configured using computer command languages and software applications. Such was the case in the 2015 Presidential Poll during which the use of INEC Smart Card Reader technology was substantially collapsed and massive manual voting reverted to. This is to the extent that in the end, out of 15.4m votes credited to Muhammad Buhari of APC, 10.2m came from manual voting; out of which, whopping 7.6m came from the 12 poll rigging Nigerian States of the North-West and North-East. In Kano State, for instance, out of 1,903,000 votes credited to Buhari, 1,350,000 came from manual voting and in Katsina State, out of 1,050,000 votes credited to Buhari, 6.5m came from manual voting-with only 3.55m from biometric or voting through voters’ card.

“No doubt of the fact that Peter Obi enjoys immense popularity and followership among tens of millions of Nigerians of urban and rural residencies particularly the moderates Christians and Muslims, but the long is still too far from our recent findings. The PDP Presidential Council Spokesperson had recently told the Voice of America (VOA) that “votes used in determining the winner of a presidential election in Nigeria are votes derived from the hinterlands”. Intersociety had in its 26^th Oct 2022 ’24-Page’ Special Report on INEC and its Illegalities identified the National Register of Voters, its contents and massive disenfranchisement of tens of millions of citizens of voting age as the greatest threat to the credibility and popularity of the 25^th Feb 2023 Presidential Poll. Apart from the National Register of Voters being dotted with illegal migrants, underage children and fake identities in their several millions, tens of millions of other potential active voters have been massively disenfranchised. Till date, INEC has deliberately maintained a lukewarm attitude towards ensuring that the 29.5m Nigerians registered long ago and denied PVCs; are timely issued with PVCs to enable them vote in the 2023 Presidential Poll; to the extent that in the North, out of every five Muslims of voting age, four have been demographically captured and issued with PVCs whereas out of every five non Muslims of voting age in the North and South, three do not have PVCs. It is worst in the South-East and South-South and non native resident population in the North where out of every five citizens of voting age, only two or one has PVCs.

“Finally, two major tasks before Peter Obi and his supporters are forensic evaluation of the National Register of Voters and compelling INEC to issue PVCs to 29.5m registered Nigerian voters without PVCs. Obi and his supporters must relocate from twitter spaces and other social media synchronous and asynchronous chat-rooms to the country’s 8,809 electoral wards so as to forensically evaluate the real contents of the National Register of Voters being displayed country-wide. It must be remembered that it was Dr Chris Nwabueze Ngige that provided access to his computers at Aroma Junction, Awka, Anambra State for Democracy and Rights CSOs to forensically evaluate the then displayed Voters’ Register for Anambra State in 2009 ahead of the State Governorship Poll of Feb 10, 2010 during which shocking discoveries were made including flooding the Register with 1.2m fictitious names and inanimate objects including photos of Gani, Soyinka, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, etc as “registered voters in Nnewi South of Anambra State”. Obi and his supporters must therefore congregate other critical electoral and social justice stakeholders to ensure that the 29.5m registered citizens without PVCs are issued same by INEC between now and the end of Jan 2023. Obi and supporters must also be reminded that “Presidential Poll in Nigeria is weaponized by PVCs, such that those that have PVCs are allowed at polling units and those without PVCs, even if registered as voters, have no business going near the polling units”.”

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