The Labour Party has demanded for a forensic investigation into the expenditure of budgeted disbursements and donor funds received by the Independent National Electoral Commission as well as the N300 billions of Nigerian taxpayers funds used for the 2023 general elections.
Director General of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Otumba Akin Osuntokun, made this demand on behalf of the Labour Party and the council, at a media briefing in Abuja, on Thursday.
He explained that Nigerians deserved to have details of how these funds were disbursed in exchange for arguably “the worst election conducted in recent memory.”
Osuntokun said, “We also demand unequivocally, the immediate dismissal from office and prosecution of Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, and the commencement of forensic financial investigation, into the expenditure of budgeted disbursements and Donors’ funds received by INEC…not the least of which is the N300 billion appropriated from the National purse, as well as other funds and materials from international donor agencies.”
According to him, it was disheartening to note that spokespersons of the All Progressives Congress and President Bola Tinubu, chose to condemn the report of the European Union Observer Mission on the 2023 General Election and engage in the selective celebration of the 2019 Election reports from the same observer group.
The LP campaign DG said, “The Labour Party and the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Organisation condemn vehemently, the negative and jundiced responses on the EU Report and other Election Observers’ reports, by the Spokespersons of the APC administration and other Ill-informed persons, which are totally in discord with the mood of the nation, at this time and which also present an embarrassing contrast to the celebration of the 2019 Election reports, from these same Observer groups.”
Osuntokun also urged “those who have deployed hired protesters to the offices of the EU in respect to their election report to desist from any further wastage of public funds, as the objective of intimidation is without basis, and has failed from the beginning.
He further said, “We commend the international community and civil society for their continued support in growing and consolidating our democracy.
“It is now only logical, bolstered by the final Observer Group reports, that the international community take immediate and appropriate punitive action against Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, Barrister Festus Okoye and other top administrative and field staff of INEC, directly complicit in the desecration of these elections.”
He argued that it would not be out of place to declare that our national problems have gotten worse given the extent of fraud, impunity, conspiracy, deceit, financial waste and democratic impediment, orchestrated and effected in the 2023 elections a situation which Nigerians trooped out and voted to change but had their collective will subverted.
