The Caritas Nigeria (Catholic Caritas Foundation of Nigeria) election observer group has declared the 2023 general elections as the worst in the history of Nigeria’s electoral system.
Director, Church and Society Department of Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, who is also the Executive Secretary, Caritas Nigeria, Rev. Fr. Uchechukwu Obodoechina, made this declaration at the public presentation of the 2023 General Elections Observation Report.
Obodoechina said that the elections were married by violence, intimidation, disenfranchisement, vote-buying, logistics challenges, and several other vices that affected its credibility.
He recommended punishment for people who compromised the system, which he said resulted in the manipulation of the outcomes of the elections.
The cleric said, “Obviously, majority of Nigerians are disappointed with the performance of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security agencies despite the huge financial and logistics support it received.
“One of the greatest flaws of the 2023 elections was the inability, unwillingness, and outright refusal of INEC to upload results from Form EC8A to the IReV portal in real-time from the Polling Units as was severally promised before the conduct of the election.”
Obodoechina stated that currently, no fewer than 10 political parties have instituted 1,341 cases, representing about 90 percent of the 1,490 contested seats; and 346 judges have been engaged in different tribunals, making the 2023 elections the most litigated, contentious, disputed elections in the history of Nigeria’s electoral democracy.
He noted, “There are chances that the 1,341 petitions may not be the last since some other cases have not come to the fore. The ball is now before the Courts, and one question that agitates people’s minds is why it should be so. If the Courts should be the avenue of determining who wins elections in Nigeria, then what is the essence of establishing INEC?
“Judiciary is the last hope of the common man and they should live to that expectations. But with the level of corruption, impunity, and failure of consequences in the country, one is skeptical about the type of justice that will be served to the litigants.
“It is our sincere hope that the judiciary should, for once, prove those who do not trust the integrity of the judiciary wrong by serving the type of justice that will right the wrongs done during the polls.”
The cleric further urged INEC to apologize to Nigerians over how its officials dashed the hopes of millions of citizens by conducting an election that fell short of, not only the expectations of most Nigerians but that of the international community, despite the huge funds approved for the exercise.
