- Says Yakubu should explain how INEC spent over N400bn on polls
- Calls on EFCC, ICPC to investigate INEC boss
The leadership of the National Youths Alliance has passed down a vote of no confidence on the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), led by Professor Yakubu Mahmood and the conduct of the February 25 Presidential and Legislative Polls.
In an interactive session with media men in Abuja, the National spokesmen of the group, Comrade Obande Gideon while appraising INEC’s conduct of the February 25 Election, said that President Muhammad Buhari took time to package a well designed electoral process aimed at bequeathing credible election to the nation, however, the INEC chairman sabotaged the process.
According to the text of the briefing made available to our correspondent in Kaduna on Tuesday, Comrade Obande added that the INEC boss derailed the process by deliberately refusing to allow the transmission of the results electronically and on real time in order to allow the servers to be tampered with.
The national spokesperson went further to accuse Prof Mahmood of embezzling over N400 billion allocated to the electoral body for conduct of election, insisting that the electoral umpire’s boss should explain how he spent the said amount.
“Prof Mahmud Yakubu is the biggest obstacle to Nigeria’s electoral voyage to free and fair elections. He promised Nigerians a credible election but reneged on the promises.
“We are calling on Prof Mahmud Yakubu and his resident electoral commissioners to explain how they spent over N400 billion given to them to conduct the 2023 general election.
“In the same vein, we are calling on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions (EFCC), Independent Crimes and Related Commissions and other anti graft commissions to call Prof Mahmud and commissioners to explain the rumours that INEC servers were about to be hacked, hence the refusal of INEC to upload the results of the Presidential elections.
“We are also calling on the anti graft agencies to investigate how Prof Yakubu the N400 billion allocated to the electoral commission,” the group said.
In the same vein, Comrade Gideon said that the National Youths Alliance has lost confidence in INEC’s ability to conduct a credible gubernatorial election and legislative polls coming up by March 18.
Apart from rejecting the result of the February 25 Election, the group said it would approach the courts with the aim of making sure that all the irregularities allowed by INEC are corrected.
Comrade urged the youths to come out en mass to vote for their choice of candidates during the gubernatorial and legislative election, adding that, if they do not come out , the electoral body would allocated phantom figures to parties it favours.
“We are calling on the youth to come out massively next Saturday and vote for parties of their choice.Youth should also make sure that after voting, to snap results collated.
“Failure to come out massively and vote would only give INEC operators the leverage to allocate humongous and phantom votes to parties that it favours,” they warned.
