Lagos, Nigeria
CNN
—
Nigeria’s main opposition parties are calling for new elections, describing the results now being announced by the electoral body as “heavily rigged and rigged” at a joint press conference in the capital, Abuja.
They said their parties would no longer participate in the ongoing matching process in the capital Abuja and added that they had lost confidence in electoral body chairman Mahmoud Yacoub, the People’s Democratic Party, the Labor Party and the African Democratic Congress said in a joint statement in Abuja on Tuesday.
The parties called for new elections under the leadership of a new chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“We urge the international community to take note that the results announced at the National Comparison Center were heavily fabricated and falsified and do not reflect the wishes of Nigerians expressed in the February 25, 2023 elections,” they said.
The electoral process was marked by controversy and the announcement at the national comparison center in Abuja came with some tense moments as members of the opposition party walked out of the comparison center when the results were announced on Monday.
Several observers, including the European Union, said the elections fell short of expectations and “lack of transparency”.
“The elections did not meet the reasonable expectations of Nigerian citizens,” a joint mission of observers from the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) said.
The ruling All-Progressive Congress (APC) candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu is leading the race so far, with nearly half of the votes already counted on Tuesday, according to the country’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) results.
Twenty-three of the 36 states announced their results at the state level. According to INEC, Atiku Abubakar, from the leading opposition party PDP, is in second place.
Despite his Shock victory over Tinubu In his homeland of Lagos state, Peter Obi, a highly publicized “third force” candidate, is trailing in third place.
According to the INEC iRev results portal, 83,798 out of 176,846 polling stations have submitted their results.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was also among those who criticized the electoral process in a scathing letter late on Monday, alleging that the results were rigged.
But the government warned him not to cut short the election “with his inflammatory, self-serving and provocative election letter” in statement from Information Minister Lai Mohammed.
However, the APC dismissed Obasanjo’s accusations as “frivolous, unsubstantiated and baseless”, stressing that the former leader did not provide any evidence to support his claims that the electoral technology had been manipulated.
The APC criticized Obasanjo’s statement, calling it an “implicit call” for a “coup against democracy and the constitution”.
The party acknowledged the loss of Tinubu in his fortified state of Lagos and questioned the results of Obasanjo’s investigation.
Meanwhile, INEC continues to announce incoming results, despite criticism from the commission.
Meanwhile, Yakubu asked any candidate with complaints to seek compensation in the courts during the announcement of results in Abuja on Monday.
Yakubu says he plans to continue announcing the results despite the complaints.