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2023 Presidential election worst in Nigeria’s recent history — Peter Obi
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has described Nigeria’s just concluded presidential election held last month as the worst conducted in the country’s recent history.
Obi stated this during an interview on Channels TV Sunrise Daily morning show on Thursday.
He lamented that despite repeated promises by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to ensure that the elections were credible and successful with the help of the BVAS technology, coupled with the huge amount budgeted for the exercise, the process was far below expectations.
“We have seen probably what I consider the worst election in our recent history because of the Electoral law (Act) of 2022 which gave so much hope and the huge expenditure we put into technology. Do you know what it means to spend over $1bn? So, there was so much that was promised and then we went back to what it used to be. For me, that is very devastating,” Obi said.
The former governor of Anambra State lamented that the poor performance of INEC in the election due to the commission’s failure to upload election results in real-time on its portal as promised has downgraded the country’s rating by some rating firms.
“Look at how they downgraded us globally all over the newspaper. Starting from the Financial Times to the Economists to Chatham House to institutions that don’t make comments to start making comments bringing us so low in the committee of nations. Even one of the rating agencies downgrades our ratings.”
“A country as big as Nigeria, the giant of Africa, supposedly a nation that should be celebrated globally, 63 years after independence cannot conduct a simple election. For me, the struggle is on and we must reverse the situation, “ Obi said.
When asked about the key factors that made this election the worst in Nigeria’s history, the LP candidate said, “The issue of the so-called BVAS which I have changed to ‘Basic Value Acceptable’ …So you have promised that you are going to conduct an election through a process and that process failed completely.”
