A former director of ITC with the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Okechukwu Ibeanu, yesterday, said his greatest worry in the next week’s presidential election is how the teeming youths who are clamouring for a new Nigeria in Nigeria would be contained if their choice of who they trust to give them the new Nigeria does not win the election.

Ibeanu said his fear is based on the level of enthusiasm and effort being put into the 2023 electoral process by the youths.

“I have not seen an election that has drawn the kind of enthusiasm this election is receiving from the youths who are hoping for a new Nigeria. I worry that I don’t know how the situation will be managed if their hope for a new Nigeria is not met”, he said.

The former INEC director spoke in Enugu at a public lecture on “Electoral process in Nigeria and 2023 elections”, which was organised by the Institute for Development Studies, IDS, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and Hope Givers Initiative, HOGI.

Stressing the need for a credible election, Ibeanu noted that integrity is very important in election administration management.

He went on to name what makes an election credible to include trust, saying that “election is based on trust; trust is critical in election management; if it is not there, the election is jeopardised”.

According to him, “In Nigeria, the unfortunate scenario is that politicians don’t trust themselves and they also don’t trust INEC”.

He praised INEC for the progress made over the years in election management despite noting that it is difficult to conduct elections with “the parlous infrastructure in Nigeria” such as poor electricity, bad roads poor networks, among others”.

He identified some major threats of elections to include manipulation of security agencies; trust deficit even with the use of technology, roles of other agencies in the election process, and fake news and misinformation.

According to him, “the nature of elections contributes to how well they will turn out, saying that “the danger of a tight race is that it makes politicians more desperate to win the election at all cost”, which is a big threat.”

Ibeanu said that when the living standard of the people improves, they would reject vote buying or even raise the stakes for politicians which they would find very difficult to meet. (Vanguard)

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