Sowore brands INEC as ‘incompetent agency managing elections’

Human rights activist and presidential candidate on the platform of Africa Action Congress (ACC), Omoyele Sowore, has taken a swipe at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over its shoddy conduct of elections in Nigeria.

Citing 2015 and 2019 elections as unambiguous aberrations of electoral laws, Sowore slammed the commission for allegedly allowing a small circle of influential Nigerians to determine who becomes president in the country.

Sowore, who spoke on the state of nation during an interview session on Super fm, in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital on Saturday, noted that Nigerians have lost trust in the ability of the commission to deliver the country through free and fair elections.

He said: “INEC is an incompetent agency managing elections in Nigeria. Because of the ways the commission has managed elections in recent times, more and more people have lost interest in elections.

Read also: Sowore bemoans deplorable state of Nigerians in IDPs camps

“They prefer to stay away. Some few people called elites are allowed to determine the destiny of the country, and INEC is responsible for that.”

Sowore added that some attacks recently experienced by the Commission were manifestation of its lack of credibility.

He said that the voilence and insecurity being experienced by Nigerians in recent years emanated from electoral shoddiness.

“What Nigerians have experienced in terms of major violence that wrapped different sections of Nigeria in the last ten or fifteen years started from elections. The Niger Delta militancy started from an election that took place in Rivers State where militants were hired to rig elections. When they finished rigging elections for the people who hired them, they abandoned them. And what they did was to start shooting at anything that moves.

“The same thing for Boko Haram which was used to rig election in Borno State. After rigging election, those who hired them abandoned them. When their leader was killed, they became wild and enemies of the state. The issue of electoral robbery called for all of this”, Sowore said.

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