NAIRAMETRICS
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has described the February 25, 2023, presidential election as the worst in Nigeria’s history and a setback to the democratic process in the country.
This was made known by Peter Obi while featuring on a Channels Television programme, Sunrise Daily, on Thursday, where he said that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) promised so much but failed to even meet the minimum standard.
Why the election is the worst in Nigeria’s history
Obi, who was also a former Governor of Anambra State said,
- ‘’For me when you go into a competition especially in a transactional country as Nigeria, you expect all sorts.
- ‘’And whatever is the outcome, the most important thing is to stay on course, and for me, I’m on course in this because we’ve seen probably what I consider the worse election in our recent history because of the Electoral law [Act] of 2022 which gave so much hope and the huge expenditure we put into technology,
- “Do you know what it means to spend over $1 billion? So, there was so much that was promised and then we went back to what it used to be. For me, that is very devastating.
- ‘’That a country as big as Nigeria, the giant of Africa and supposedly a nation that should be celebrated globally, 63 years after independence cannot conduct a simple election, just an election. That’s how I feel. But for me the struggle is on, we must reverse the situation.’’
Nigeria downgraded by 2023 poll
Obi, who berated INEC over its failure to transmit results of the presidential election in real-time via its portal, said the conduct of the 2023 exercise has downgraded the country.
He maintained, “Everybody paid so much emphasis on the law and the technology,’’ describing the failures of the exercise as “when you promise so much and don’t even meet the minimum”.
- Obi stated, “Whenever there is an election announced globally, what it does is that it uplifts the ratings, the status of that society. But every newspaper, I mean go and read the punch editorial on Sunday. It has never happened before where we have bad editorial globally and internally where people are saddened.’’
He says the conduct of the presidential election has further dampened the morale of youths who had so much hope in the process.
