Apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has warned the Prof Mahmood Yakubu-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) against allowing the commission to be used by “the agents of darkness to test the will of the people”, especially the Nigerian youths who have voted massively for their preferred candidates, Mr. Peter Obi and his running mate, Datti-Ahmed of Labour Party  during the presidential and National  Assembly polls on Saturday and Sunday.

In a statement issued on Sunday in Enugu by the National Publicity Secretary of Igbo socio-cultural organization, Dr. Alex Ogbonnia, the Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Ambassador Okey Emuchay, MFR “thanked the good people of Nigeria for their courage, steadfastness and the ultimate discharge of their civic duties by exercising their franchise for a better Nigeria at the Presidential and National Assembly elections on Saturday, February 25 and Sunday, February 26, 2023.”

Ambassador Emuchay also expressed immense delight that the youths of Nigeria “walked their talk by voting for Peter Obi and Datti Ahmed of the Labour Party, overwhelmingly across the country.” Going by the results so far released by INEC, Emuchay said Nigerians had fully expressed their delight for a “quantum leap from the asphyxiating ocean of darkness and want to an inspiring gravy train of light and prosperity.”

However, Ohanaeze said it was most regrettable that “some agents of darkness are bent on using the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to test the will of Nigerians.”

The umbrella Igbo association called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the international community to prevail on Prof Yakubu not to “lend hand to the thickening Frankenstein Monster that first devours its creator by respecting the will of the people.”

Ohanaeze reminded Yakubu and INEC that Nigerians went into this election based on his assurances that the deployment of BIVAS by INEC was a perfect antidote to electoral malpractices in Nigeria, stressing that “it would, therefore, be very unfortunate if what is going on across Nigeria is allowed to continue. It is a betrayal of trust, which the millions of Nigerians will surely revolt against.”

According to the highest Igbo socio-cultural association, “Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) states: You can fool some of the people all the time; you can also fool all the people some of the time; but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

“Just as JF Kennedy (1917-1963) states: Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. Mr. Peter Obi has often insisted that the Almighty God is only using him as a vessel to rescue and lift Nigeria from its current tailspin. In other words, the victory is yours and must be defended by all.”

Still accusing the INEC of wanting to test the will of millions of the Nigerian electorate who “have spoken through their votes”” so far, part of the Ohanaeze statement reads:

“For instance:

1. “The National Chairman of the Labour Party, Julius Abure, yesterday, raised alarm that some “officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Lagos and Delta States have refused to upload the results of the presidential elections collated in various polling units in the states unto INEC’s Central Server. The Chairman, in a statement said that most of the polling units affected were areas where the LP candidate, Peter Obi, had recorded victory. The chairman listed places like Agege, Kosofe, Oshodi-Isolo, Surulere, and Ibeju Lekki, in Lagos where results showed that Labour Party won convincingly, and INEC officials had failed to upload results. He added that ‘they were using the police to drive away the Labour Party agents and supporters out of the venue”. The police asserted that “they had the firm instruction from the INEC headquarters not to upload”

2. “Similarly, Chief Bode George alerted that the “INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu sneaked into Lagos at night of the election, and met with some unknown persons in Ikoyi Lagos”.  The most curious, worrisome, and threatening is that Yakubu “arrived and left in a private jet owned by Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”

3. “Mr. Olawale Okunniyi of the Labour Party reports of gunshots in parts of Lagos, and that its chieftain, Prof Pat Utomi, and some others have been held hostage and election results being manipulated at collation centres in parts of the state. Evidently, “Nigerians have demonstrated that they want Peter Obi to be their president by voting for him”.

4. “Governor Nyesom Wike, after several months of melodramatic political ambivalence and pretentious morality was confronted with a “stark reality of a defeat even in the polling units in his compound in Worji, where LP scored 323 votes against APC and PDP’s 5 and 2 votes respectively” Abure informs that Wike “used the soldiers and police to intimidate, harass and took away election materials including the result sheets, manipulated the BVAS machines and uploaded fake results into the Central portal”. Other incidences include “Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo, Rumukoro, and several other areas where Labour Party was clearly leading in virtually all the polling units with very wide margins”.

5.     “The National Leader of Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo has warned that “If INEC dares to rig the election, Nigerians should protest seriously for international communities to intervene”. He added that it will be nun dimities for Nigeria.

6. “Professor Yakubu is reminded that Nigerians went into this election based his assurances that the deployment of BIVAS by INEC was a perfect antidote to electoral malpractices in Nigeria. It will therefore be very unfortunate if what is going on across Nigeria is allowed to continue. It is a betrayal of trust, which millions of Nigerians will surely revolt against.”