By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has expressed dismay at the remorseless stance of the Independent National Electoral Commission and its Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu over the Commission’s in-house brutal rigging of the Feb 25, 2023 Presidential Election.

It said that the worse of it all is that Prof Mahmood Yakubu as INEC Chairman is still going about parading himself as “professor of integrity and characte to the extent of “threatening the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and its Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar with a defamation of character lawsuit for calling on INEC Chairman to resign on the ground of lack of character and integrity.

The group in a statement signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chair at Intersociety, Chinwe Umeche Esquire, Head, Democracy and Good Governance Program among others on Sunday said that It has never been heard that a child is beaten and forced not to cry.

Intersociety said, "There Are No Professorial And Personal Integrity And Character Left To Be Defamed

"Intersociety is deeply shocked that despite widespread public outcries and brazenness of the rigging, the fifty four top officials of INEC including Prof Mahmood Yakubu have remained unperturbed, unmoved and remorseless.

"Intersociety makes bold to say that there are no more professorial and personal integrity and character of the INEC Chairman left to be defamed. It is also obvious that resorting to “threat of character defamation lawsuit” by the camp of INEC Chairman is a ploy to intimidate and muscle the fundamental human rights (rights to freedom from discrimination and freedom of conscience and expression) of tens of millions of aggrieved voices including victims of the INEC Chairman’s vicariously or directly coordinated armada of presidential electoral fraud of 2023.

"By convention and law, INEC Chairman is vicariously or directly liable for his conducts or misconducts, actions or inactions or commissions or omissions in the performance of his official duties. This is more so when Section 2 (3) of INEC Establishment Act of 2004 clearly or unambiguously stated that ‘the Chairman and members of the Commission shall be persons of unquestionable integrity."

Speaking on a sub head "INEC And Its Chair Must Open Up And Judicially Defend Its 2023 Presidential Poll Roguery", Intersociety said that the electoral umpire and its Chairman must be stopped from nefarious conducts capable of plunging Nigeria into intractable dangers.

It condemned the Commission’s resort to “technicalities” and other escapist clandestine conducts, saying that it must be unmasked.

While warning INEC that this is not 2019 post presidential poll judicial proceedings which was fueled by judicial technicalities and escapist loopholes, it added, "Intersociety has it on good authority that the Commission’s recent decision to approach the Presidential Poll Petition for an order to “reconfigure BVAS” was externally plotted and done in bad faith-leading to the camp of the rigged in political party celebrating the obtained order as “a game over verdict”.

"On the contrary, Intersociety wishes to authoritatively state that the INEC in-house brutal rigging of the 2023 Presidential Election will not go unpunished and must be internationally coordinated to ruffle the feathers of the identified fifty four top electoral officials including the Chairman and Director/Deputy Director of the Commission’s ICT.

"Intersociety hereby throws its full weight and support behind PDP and its Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar as well as Labour Party and its Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi for heading to electoral courts for determination of the true and moral winner of the 2023 Presidential Poll and who that emerged second, third and fourth.

"INEC is therefore strongly called upon to stop hiding under the cloak of technicalities and escapist loopholes and open up and come out boldly to judicially defend its coordinated 2023 armada of presidential electoral fraud. The Court orders granted to litigants by the Presidential Tribunal must be fully complied with by INEC."

It also called on President Muhammadu Buhari and Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike To Prepare Their Handover, Pack Their Luggage And Baggage and Retire.

Intersociety further said, "Intersociety seriously finds it morally reprehensible and totally condemnable for outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria and Gov Nyesom Wike of Rivers State to be spending taxpayers’ funds in the media or at international scene justifying their ignoble roles in the 2023 Presidential armada of electoral fraud.

"Outgoing President Muhammad Buhari, has through his media spokespersons, been going about justifying the INEC in-house brutally rigged poll including calling on foreign respected Democracies to legitimize the heist. As if the above was not enough, the outgoing Nigeria’s President is also shockingly going about saying that “he has given Nigerians the most credibly conducted presidential election in the history”.

"Gov Nyesom Wike, on his part, has also been going about with taxpayers’ funds in the media parroting why he did what he did, claiming that the heist that took place in Rivers State on 25th Feb 2023 was “to ensure that power is rotated back to the South”; with the people of the South-East as “born-to-be ruled” since Nigeria’s independence transition in 1957. Totality of the above is nothing short of presidential and gubernatorial canonization of illegalities and exhibition of shamelessness and impunity.

"Intersociety hereby sees the above as deceitful and deliberate distraction and diversion of public attention. We also make bold to say that the duo of outgoing President Muhammad Buhari of Nigeria and Gov Nyesom Wike of Rivers State are at the twilight of their tenure expiration and what is expected of them is preparation of their handover notes and packing of their luggage and baggage for purpose of permanently retiring from the polity.

Their ignoble roles in the 2023 armada of presidential electoral fraud must be left in the hands, minds and consciences of Nigerians and posterity to judge and take action. They must also stop making inflammatory, intimidating and public anger provoked comments and allow those in the hallowed chambers of the electoral courts to interrogate and make their unbiased findings."

Intersociety said that the outgoing President, Muhammadu Buhari whose tenure comes to end on 29th May 2023; two months and eighteen days time, owes Nigerians detailed explanations as to how he governed the country for eight years.

The group added, "The outgoing President’s scorecard must include state of insecurity including ethnic and religious related killings, abductions and disappearances; and property violence; death tolls arising from street criminalities and properties and persons lost as well as security agencies’ unlawful killings, abductions, disappearances and wanton destruction of defenseless properties.

"Outgoing President Buhari must also inform Nigerians the extent he upheld the country’s Constitution and Nigeria’s Treaty Laws and maintenance of ethnic and religious harmony and peaceful coexistence; distribution of federal office appointments and national wealth; the pre 2015 inherited federal component of local and foreign borrowings and their present figures and where and what the borrowings were used for; attraction of direct foreign investments and current state of critical infrastructures and social services including the present condition of federal composition or components of roads, railways, airports, healthcare, water resources, agriculture and food security, environment security and safety, economic development, employment, industrialization and public-private-partnership, education growth or undergrowth, justice and rule of law and social justice and human rights, etc.

"Gov Nyesom Wike, on his part, must prepare his handover notes and pack his luggage and baggage for purpose of permanently retiring from the polity. The outgoing and strongly suspected public office conduct atrocity perpetrator Governor must be reminded that time is no longer on his side to rigmarole in frivolities and absurdities.

"He must allow posterity and future circumstances to take stock of and judge him on what he did in office including the massacre of more than 200 defenseless Obigbo residents and abduction and disappearances of hundreds of others including abominable sexual violence against dozens of defenseless Obigbo women by soldiers of the Nigerian Army that he invited to Obigbo between 21st Oct and 21st Nov 2020 through a Statewide media broadcast-leading to Obigbo Army massacre of 2020.”

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