The general elections in 2023 have passed, but the issues that accompanied them will linger for months, if not years.
President Muhammadu Buhari signed the new electoral bill into law almost a year before the elections. Nigerians were overjoyed because they saw it as the start of the long-awaited election reform.
Nigerians were relieved since President Buhari had previously refused to sign the bill for reasons best known to him.
Citizens’ faith in the nation’s election system has grown as a result of the new election Act.
They believed that the days of rigging and manipulation were coming to an end. People believed that their votes would be counted and that incumbents would no longer be able to defy popular will.
The outcome of the Osun governorship election, in which the incumbent government of then Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was ousted from power, rekindled electorates’ faith in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), with voters expecting a free, fair, and credible election in 2023.
When the recently finished general elections were approaching, INEC went to great lengths to reassure Nigerians that their ballots would be counted.
For months, the commission encouraged Nigerians and stated categorically that the new electoral law, which allowed the use of technology, had given INEC the authority it required to hold a credible election.
On election days, the commission placed a high value on the usage of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) and the immediate transfer of results from polling stations.
Politicians and other Nigerians who were suspicious about INEC’s ability to effectively exploit technological breakthroughs expressed numerous concerns. Some questioned if the BVAS machine would function in villages without a telecommunications network.
However, INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu and the commission’s National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, were everywhere, emphatically telling Nigerians that BVAS would be the only means of accreditation and that results would be uploaded to the INEC Result Viewing (IREV) portal directly from polling units.
“We are dedicated to ensuring a free and fair process.” “I want to reassure you that INEC is not a political party,” claimed the commission.
A few days before the presidential election, Yakubu told the Commonwealth Election Observation Mission to Nigeria, chaired by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, in Abuja: “We don’t have a candidate in the election.” The Nigerian people have complete control over who becomes what during the general election.
