Twitter users have criticised Mike Igini, former Resident Electoral Commissioner, Akwa Ibom for avoiding questions on BVAs, and IREV.
Igini who was seen as the face of INEC, in the lead-up to the 2023 general elections, confessed INEC’s readiness to conduct free, fair and credible elections using BVAs and IREV.
Hear the lawyer, ‘‘What is not new is that by the virtue of section 60, the results are going to be uploaded simultaneously to both the server and to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) for people, who have cast the votes to see. Let me be clear here; in an electoral democracy, those who count the votes do not matter but those who cast the votes do.”
But, speaking in ARISE NEWS on Thursday, the two-term Akwa Ibom Resident Electoral Commissioner dodged questions on BVAS and IREV to avoid indicting INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, his former boss whom many accused of failing to live to his pledge of loading results to INEC’s server after the February 25 presidential election.
Rather, Igini advised the Nigerian judiciary to discourage politicians from seeing them as a safe haven when things don’t go as they want.
According to Ralph C, ‘‘between the lines of his word you will finding him indicting INEC because they reinforced crooked politicians by failing to take advantage of technology & adhre to the electoral act. Igini doesn’t want to indict INEC publicly bcos social media would have been agor with it today.’’
In an interview with ARISE NEWS, Igini stated that the judiciary must be mindful of its place in the practice of democracy, urging them to take a cue from the United Kingdom’s judicial system.
“The most important message this morning is that the judges, the Judiciary must be mindful of its place in the affairs of the society, particularly, in the practice of democracy,” he said.
The former INEC REC said the election ought to have ended at the polling units, having no need for the long court processes.
“The whole design of the innovations that we have been working on for years, particularly those provisions that were resisted for twenty years, that have now changed under the Electoral Act, 2022 were all intended to ensure that at the end of the election, the votes of the Nigerian people should be determined, finally and conclusively at the polling unit, not in the court of law,” he said.
Mr. Igini also noted that as a result of the ongoing tribunal, most court cases that are politically unrelated are now placed on hold.
“The implications of this are as follows which is the reason why I’m worried and I have been saying this over the years. As we speak today, because of the nature of the election petitions, all the judges that have now been selected to be in the tribunal, all their civil and criminal dockets are now on hold.
“Cases that have been up for 22 years, 15 years, as we speak now, are going to be on hold in abeyance for the next six months because the judges are on various tribunals.’’
He further stated that the outcome of the general election was not the expectation of the commission.
