Organized Labour, under the aegis of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has expressed concerns over alleged Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC’s ill-reparedness for the 2023 elections, citing the almost deliberate tampering of the BVAS in many Polling units, including late arrival of critical elections materials to the units.
The Congress lamented the alleged outright refusal of it’s operatives to uphold results from the BVAS to the INEC Servers in total violation of the Rule of the election and INEC’s own election guidelines.
It also condemned the bloodletting, harassment, Ballot Box snatching and willful destruction of election materials in some States ,even in the presence of members of the security agencies and INEC officials.
In a statement signed by the NLC President, Comrade Joe Ajaero and obtained by Daily Champion yesterday, the Congress regretted that the situation rather than getting better, got worse as the day went on with heart-wrenching reports from across the nation of vile activities of individuals associated with some parties and utter collusion of INEC officials and security agencies to compromise the election and subvert the will of the people.
“The NLC feels compelled to warn INEC and the security agencies of the dangers of subverting the sovereign will. They are the umpire in this election and must be seen as above board and acting within the ambits of the Law and its Guidelines. The deliberate frustration of the BVAS remains unacceptable and any result outside of what is transmitted or contained in it is not acceptable to Nigerians.
“INEC must understand that not uploading the results to its Server expeditiously as expected, creates avoidable crisis of confidence and imperils the entire process. We continue to express our deep concerns over the apparent manipulation of results in Lagos and Rivers States and demand that the real results as captured by the BVAS be uploaded without fail”, it added.
The Congress urged INEC to investigate the activities of one of its officials in the ICT department who may have been responsible for technically jamming the airwaves, making it difficult for BVAS results to be transmitted to the Servers.
“NLC calls on all Nigerian workers and citizens to be at alert to protect our nation from the hands of those who have foisted the current suffering on us and now clearly want to subvert our collective will as expressed in this election cycle. It is our civil responsibility to protect our democracy and indeed our nation”, it further added.
Consequently, Congress charged the Military and Police to ensure the sanctity of the Ballot and protect the lives of the citizenry who they swore to protect with their arms.
