The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has condemned the outcome of the February 25, 2023 Presidential Election, won by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu.

The group also faulted the Independent National Electoral Commission on the conduct of the election, saying the commission did not comply with electoral guidelines.

This was contained in a communique issued after the general meeting of the group.

The communique was made available to our correspondent by the Secretary General of the association, Mr Sola Ebiseni, in Akure, the Ondo State capital on Wednesday.

According to the group, the alleged non-compliance with the electoral guidelines by the INEC caused a series of malpractices during the last general election.

The communique read in part;

The deliberate non-compliance by the Commission with these mandatory guidelines encouraged electoral brigandage at the polling units which included the destruction of ballot papers, snatching of ballot boxes, doctoring of figures and swapping of votes of candidates at the coalition centres by amended and outlawed manual procedures which rendered the 25th February 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections flawed in several respects as confirmed by local and international observers.

“The results of the lawful votes at the election available to the Afenifere through credible sources confirm that His Excellency Peter Gregory Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party won the said election and we thus support his decision challenging the contrary Declaration by the INEC.”

The group, which declared that the Labour Part’s candidate, Mr Peter Obi won the presidential election, “denounced in strong terms and dissociated Afenifere from any congratulatory message in the name of the Organisation or howsoever to any candidate as illegally declared by the INEC.”

Afenifere reiterates that for equity, fairness, national cohesion and peaceful corporate existence, the next President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a person of its Southern part and specifically the South-East,” the statement added.

The group called on Nigerians to troop out en masse and participate fully in the governorship and houses of assembly elections coming up on Saturday, March 11, 2023.

Earlier, the leader of the group worldwide, Pa Reuben Fasoranti in a congratulatory letter to the President-Elect, Tinubu over his victory in the last presidential election.

In the letter, Fasoranti advised the President-Elect to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors.

The letter read in part;

“You now have the opportunity. Now is the time for you to prove me right. I pray to God to be with you.

“In going about this, avoid the mistake of some of your forbears. Be fair to all concerned. Go ahead to unite the country, see and treat the country as one.

“Be a federalist. Allow the big ethnic groups to exist and respect one another, but also allow the small ones to feel proud and wanted in the spirit of federalism as practised in the USA.”

The Independent National Electoral Commission has postponed the governorship and state assembly elections till March 18.

The exercise was previously scheduled to hold on March 11, but INEC, citing a logistics crisis stemming from BVAS configuration and transportation, said the election could not hold again as scheduled following a meeting of its executives on Wednesday evening.

“The elections were postponed to allow one more week for preparations,” an official familiar with the meeting told Peoples Gazette by telephone on Wednesday night.

“We should be able to get everything in order before March 18.”

The meeting was still underway at INEC headquarters in Abuja as of the time of filing this report.

The commission had convinced the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal to vary its order granting Peter Obi of the Labour Party and PDP’s Atiku Abubakar permission to inspect the election materials on the premise that it had to reconfigure the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) for the conduction of the polls this Saturday.

The Independent National Electoral Commission says the March 11 governorship and state house of assembly elections will hold as scheduled.

INEC gave the assurance in a statement by its spokesman Festus Okoye, in Abuja on Thursday.

The electoral umpire said all the processes and procedures leading to the elections were being finalised.

“The commission held its regular weekly meeting and deliberated on several issues, including the presidential and National Assembly elections,” said INEC.

“It also discussed the governorship and state assembly elections and the pending elections in Enugu East senatorial district and the Esan Central/Esan West and Igueben federal constituencies in Edo.”

INEC also promised to conduct the rescheduled elections in Enugu and Edo on March 11.

“The commission is aware that in some senatorial districts and federal constituencies, declarations and returns were not made. The commission is compiling the list of the affected constituencies. A date for supplementary elections will be fixed after the governorship and State Assembly elections,” the INEC statement added.

On Wednesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Cross River began the distribution of sensitive materials to the 18 local council areas for Saturday’s presidential and parliamentary elections.

The distribution commenced at INEC’s office, with the loading of Bimodal Voter Accreditation election result sheets and the ballot papers from the Central Bank of Nigeria.

All security agencies, including the paramilitary, police, army, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, the Nigeria Immigration Service, the Federal Road Safety Corps and the State Security Service, supervised the distribution.

Political parties participating in the polls and civil society organisations were present during the distribution.

The resident electoral commissioner, Gabriel Yomere, said the decision to invite all stakeholders to witness the exercise was to forestall any impression by anybody of any wrongdoing by the commission.

Mr Yomere disclosed that the 3,281 BVAS for the state had been configured to be used at polling units.

“They have also been charged to last for 48 hours, so we don’t envisage any problem of power as regards the usage of the BVAS.

“As for the result sheets, they remained intact the way they were brought from where they came from,” he said.

At least 295 candidates in the state are jostling for the 36 elective political positions, including the governorship position, in the February 25 and March 11 general elections, according to INEC.

A breakdown of the figure showed that 11 candidates would contest the governorship seat, 28 candidates for the senatorial seats, 69 for the House of Representatives and 187 for the House of Assembly.

Only 12 out of the 17 registered political parties in the state would be fielding candidates during the elections. Meanwhile, the security agencies have reassured residents of their safety during and after the elections.

The police commissioner in charge of elections in the state, Kabiru Ibrahim, who spoke on behalf of others, said all flash points in Cross River would be closely monitored.