A Civil Society Group, National Unity Forum (NUF), has lauded the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for what it described as tremendous improvement in the 2023 general election despite the challenges faced.
The group held a rally in Abuja on Sunday to garner support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the 36 state governors, and all others in positions of authority in the country.
Comrade Godwin Meliga, National Coordinator of NUF, who spoke to newsmen during the rally, said that while some Nigerians may resort to acts of civil disobedience and open protests to express their disenchantment with the prevailing socio-economic and political challenges facing Nigeria, his group opted for prayer because it was the best option for the country at the moment.
He stated, “There’s nowhere in the world where elections will be 100 percent perfect. Nigeria is a growing democracy. We are coming from the Professor Maurice Iwu era. There’s no election that will hold, and people will not protest, especially those who lost. But whatever happens today, we believe that the current INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, has brought a lot of innovations into the Commission.”
He mentioned that as a group, NUF would continue to collaborate with the electoral umpire and the National Assembly to strengthen the electoral laws and the country’s democratic processes.
Meliga, while passing a vote of confidence on Prof Mahmud Yakubu-led INEC, commended the INEC boss and his team for their strident efforts at ensuring the success and credibility of the 2023 General Elections.
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He opined that given the tense state of the national polity prior to the last general elections, due mainly to socio-ethnic and geopolitical diversities, any attempt by INEC to have delivered a compromised electoral process could have triggered violent upheavals across the country, threatening the very fabric of our mutual coexistence.
“But the fact that INEC, under Prof. Yakubu, was obviously above board in the discharge of its mandate during the last general elections, helped to a great extent in disarming all those nursing sinister intentions for the country, including all those who may wish to capitalize on the outbreak of widespread electoral violence to achieve their narrow destabilization agenda for Nigeria,” stated Com. Meliga.
The rally took off from Unity Fountain to the INEC Headquarters.
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