By TINA TIMOTHY

The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has warned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other critical stakeholders to avoid pushing Nigeria’s millions of eligible voters into moving from ‘ballot revolution’ to ‘street revolution’ in the forthcoming 2023 general elections; as doing so was tantamount to setting the country ablaze.

Intersociety gave this charge in a statement issued in Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria on

Wednesday, June 8, 2022 and signed by its Principal Officers; Board Chair, Emeka Umeagbalasi; Head, Democracy and Good Governance, Chinwe Umeche Esq.; Head, Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Obianuju Joy Igboeli Esq. and Head, Campaign and Publicity, Chidimma Udegbunam Esq.

The statement partly reads: “The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other critical stakeholders in Nigeria’s present electoral process must avoid pushing tens of millions of impoverished, disenchanted, suppressed and frustrated Nigerian youths and eligible voters, irrespective of religious and ethnic divides and gender and social class, into moving from ‘ballot revolution’ to ‘street revolution’ in the forthcoming 2023 General Elections, particularly during or after the Presidential segment of the all-important Elections.

“INEC and other critical stakeholders, including leading political players and their parties, must therefore come clean by doing the needful so as to avoid setting the country ablaze.

Unlike in the past such as in 2011 and 2019 when some leading northern political players hid under radical religion(s) to organize and sponsor post-election mayhems targeted majorly at members of the Igbo ethnic nationality and their Trado-Judeo-Christian faith; INEC and other critical stakeholders in the country’s electoral process must inexcusably get it right this time around and in 2023 to avoid the explosion of post-election tsunami of unquenchable proportions across the country.

“Through the conspiracy of the same INEC, millions of eligible voters of Old Eastern Nigeria and Midwest resident in North-Central States of Plateau, Benue, Niger, FCT, Kogi and Nasarawa; Northeast States of Borno, Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe and Yobe; Northwest States of Kaduna, Sokoto, Kano, Jigawa and Kebbi; and Southwest States of Lagos and Ogun were denied and are still being denied demographic or registration and voting center accessibility for them to be captured as voters and allowed to vote during elections.

“During the 2019 Presidential Poll, they were targeted and destructively attacked in Lagos, Plateau, Taraba, Kaduna, Kano and several other parts of the country. Apart from millions of them disenfranchised during the past voters registration and revalidation exercises, millions of others were also chased away from polling booths in the Feb 2019 Presidential Poll with their properties worth billions of naira destroyed or burned to ashes. Millions of members of the sedentary Southeast and South-South population have also been disenfranchised by INEC by deliberately denying them to be captured as registered voters with PVCs hiding under ‘technical hitches’ or at the polling units in the Election Day. These are sharply in contrast with what was obtainable in the North, especially its Muslim-held areas where most of the eligible voters were not only captured to vote with PVCs, but also millions of underage and illegal aliens were registered as voters with PVCs and allowed to vote during elections.”

The group also pointed out that the ‘Ballot Revolution’ is targeted at flushing out “Senile-Crats” and “Kakistocrats” because the millions of voters, especially the youths are ‘tired of the present political arrangement’ characterized by ‘old political players with expired ideas’ as well as the ‘least competent and worst corrupt persons in government.’

The statement further reads: “It must be pointed out that the country’s tens of millions of youths and revolutionary voters especially the impoverished, the unemployed, the underemployed and the under-remunerated are individually and collectively tired of the present political arrangement in Nigeria patterned and pioneered by “cabalized Senile-Crats (old political players with expired ideas) and Kakistocrats” (least competent and worst corrupt persons in government) under the midwifery of the country’s Independent National Electoral Commission. This explains why INEC and others must avoid being the willing tools for the named clique of immoral, nasty and brutish political players riotously attempting to stage another political comeback and mass enslavement.

“The Commission must therefore be told and advised in clear terms to toe the path of wisdom and its coherent reasoning and avoid the dangers of plunging the country into ‘Street Revolution’. This is because Nigeria will fare far better in ‘Ballot Revolution’ than being pushed on the path of ‘Street Revolution.’

“INEC must therefore provide level grounds for all citizens of voting age in the country to participate unhindered in the forthcoming 2023 electoral process. This, the Commission must get right, starting from the ongoing voters’ registration and revalidation exercise to the Election Day voting proper. No citizen of the country, irrespective of tribe or religion must be deprived of this constitutional fundamental human right.”

Intersociety further said that INEC was ‘playing pranks’ with the ongoing voters’ registration in Igbo land and other areas in the North and Southwest occupied by Igbos and Christians.

“Checks from various registration centers across the country, especially in the Igbo Southeast and South-South, as well as Igbo and Christian-held areas in the North and Southwest have continued to indicate that the Commission is at it again by playing pranks on the ongoing voters’ registration. Apart from massive disenfranchisement through shrinking constituency delineation exercise in recent past, especially in Igbo and Christian populated areas in the North and the Southwest, acute shortage of registration machines and manpower, especially in the named areas, have been reported in the ongoing exercise with less than 22 days to go.

“INEC has also shut down its website segments for fresh voters’ registration, revalidation and transfer but still advertises them to be open and operational. Long queues of massive prospective voters, involving hundreds of thousands, if not in their millions have dotted most of the registration centers in the Southeast, South-South and Igbo/Christian-held areas of the Southwest and the North.

“Reverse is found to be the contrary in the Muslim held areas of the country where PVCs are issued to their owners, including children of underage and illegal aliens by proxies including through Village Heads. In several places monitored in Onitsha South, Onitsha North, Idemmili North, Ogbaru and Aguata in Anambra State, for instance, a price tag of between N2,000 and N5,000 is additionally imposed for getting to be registered. These are some of the Commission’s undoing in its ongoing electoral midwifery capable of pushing millions of Nigerian youths/revolutionary voters from ‘Ballot Revolution’ to ‘Street Revolution’. These, INEC must desist from continuing to do and must have them frontally redressed and put to an end to before it is too late,” the statement concluded.