Politics

INEC To Flood 2023 Presidential Poll With Magic Cotes, Group Alleges

Published

3 years ago

January 23, 2023

A civil rights group has raised alarm over an alleged secret plan by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to disenfranchise and exclude a whopping 76m citizens from participating in February 2023 presidential polls.

The group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Intersociety, also alleged that INEC is hell-bent on flooding the 2023 Presidential Poll with magic hinterland “votes” from 12 major poll-rigging Northern States.

This was disclosed in a statement jointly signed by the group’s Board Chair and Head, Democracy and Good Governance, Emeka Umeagbalasi and Chinwe Umeche, respectively, on Monday.

The Intersociety said the Electoral Commission is frustrating southerners from getting their PVCs through unavailability of PVCs, accusing INEC staff of extortion.

The group alleged that the number of PVCs distributed per State since Dec 12 2022, out of 29.5m uncollected PVCs remains unknown and undisclosed.

The statement partly read: “As it stands today, no fewer than whopping 76m Nigerians of constitutional voting age, excluding estimated 20m ineligible identities or illegal voters comprising underage age children, illegal migrants, fake names and stolen identities/PVCs, have undemocratically and dangerously been disenfranchised and excluded by the Independent National Electoral Commission from voting and participating in Nigeria’s Feb 25, 2023, crucial Presidential Poll.

”Also, out of the so-called “93.5m registered voters for 2023 general elections only 44m genuine PVC holders exist, out of which 10m have compromised their PVCs and VINs and sold their consciences to the devil.

“INEC has also been found to be unwilling and unable to prioritize the PVC distribution, including the Commission’s monumental failure to give daily and weekly national updates, especially the State by State breakdown of the total number of PVCs distributed so far and the number of pre-2019 and 2022 PVCs remaining; in addition to gender and ethnic and religious components of the newly distributed PVC recipients.

“INEC has further failed woefully to disclose how many of its claimed “newly printed 9.5m PVCs for newly registered 9.5m voters, 4m newly printed PVCs for transferred voters” and “pre- 2019 20m uncollected PVCs for those registered between 2011 and 2018” have been given or issued to their rightful owners.
‘
‘It was also found that INEC woefully failed in its constitutional and statutory duties by not properly disclosing or publishing the names and locations of the country’s 8,809 electoral wards, which the Commission claimed to have designated as “PVC collection centres”.

”Found, too, are general complaints of PVC collectors being frustrated or forced to back out of the collection exercise following sundry hitches deliberately and discriminatorily created by the Commission, including unavailability of PVCs/INEC staffers and lateness of the concerned INEC staffers to work.

‘Reported, too, are difficulties in locating PVC collection centres and organized group violence or threat of the same targeted at non-native PVC collectors (i.e. non-native areas of Lagos State).

”The INEC PVC collection exercise is further characterized by reports of long queues in the South-East, South-South and major non-native parts of the South-West and FCT, etc, involving nursing mothers, the old and pregnant women queuing under scorching sun and heat for half a day in addition to sundry extortion at collection centres, especially in Anambra, Enugu and Imo States.

”The above disclosures are in addition to “magic hinterland presidential votes” strongly feared to have already been pencilled down by INEC from the North-West States of Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara; the North-East States of Bauchi, Yobe, Borno and Adamawa; and the North-Central State of Niger.

“Disenfranchisement of Nigerian citizens of full blood and those of legitimate naturalization by INEC and their exclusion from voting and participating in national or sub-national and local council polls especially the coming Presidential Poll of Feb 25, 2023, is ‘lubricantly’ inflaming Nigeria or any part thereof and pushing the country into complex uncertainties.”

Politics

Tinubu Sends Ex-INEC Chair, Former Oyo First Lady, 30 Additional Ambassadorial Nominees To Senate

Published

2 days ago

November 29, 2025

Editor

President Bola Tinubu has forwarded 32 additional ambassadorial nominees to the Senate for confirmation, just days after submitting an initial batch of three names.

In two separate letters to Senate President Godswill Akpabio, the President urged the upper chamber to consider and swiftly confirm 15 career diplomats and 17 non-career nominees.

The list includes four women among the career nominees and six women among the non-career nominees.

Prominent names on the non-career list include Barrister Ogbonnaya Kalu from Abia State; former presidential aide, Reno Omokri (Delta); former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmud Yakubu; former Ekiti First Lady, Erelu Angela Adebayo; and former Enugu State Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.

Others are former Speaker of the Katsina State House of Assembly, Tasiu Musa Maigari; former Plateau State Commissioner, Yakubu N. Gambo; and former Deputy Executive Secretary of UBEC, Yakubu K. Musa.

Also nominated are former Plateau senator, Prof. Nora Ladi Daduut; former Lagos Deputy Governor, Otunba Femi Pedro; former Aviation Minister, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode; and Barrister Nkechi Linda Ufochukwu from Anambra State.

Additional nominees include former Oyo First Lady, Fatima Florence Ajimobi; former Lagos Commissioner, Lola Akande; former Adamawa senator, Grace Bent; former Abia governor, Victor Okezie Ikpeazu; Senator Jimoh Ibrahim of Ondo State; and former envoy to the Holy See, Ambassador Paul Oga Adikwu (Benue).

The career ambassadorial nominees are Enebechi Monica Okwuchukwu (Abia), Yakubu Nyaku Danladi (Taraba), Miamuna Ibrahim Besto (Adamawa), Musa Musa Abubakar (Kebbi), Syndoph Paebi Endoni (Bayelsa), Chima Geoffrey Lioma David (Ebonyi), and Mopelola Adeola-Ibrahim (Ogun).

Others include Abimbola Samuel Reuben (Ondo), Yvonne Ehinosen Odumah (Edo), Hamza Mohammed Salau (Niger), Ambassador Shehu Barde (Katsina), Ambassador Ahmed Mohammed Monguno (Borno), Ambassador Muhammad Saidu Dahiru (Kaduna), Ambassador Olatunji Ahmed Sulu Gambari (Kwara), and Ambassador Wahab Adekola Akande (Osun).

The new nominees are expected to be deployed to countries with which Nigeria maintains strong and strategic diplomatic relations, including China, India, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, South Africa, and Kenya, as well as to Permanent Missions such as the United Nations, UNESCO, and the African Union.

Their specific postings will be determined after Senate confirmation.

Recall that President Tinubu, last week, forwarded three ambassadorial nominees, Ambassador Ayodele Oke (Oyo), Ambassador Amin Mohammed Dalhatu (Jigawa), and retired Colonel Lateef Kayode Are (Ogun), who are being considered for postings to the UK, USA, or France.

President Tinubu said additional ambassadorial nominations will be announced in due course.

Politics

Soludo Visits Tinubu, Goes Into Closed Door Session With President

Published

3 days ago

November 28, 2025

Editor

Anambra State Governor, Prof Chukwuma Charles Soludo, on Thursday, paid a courtesy visit to the President, Bola Tinubu, GCFR at the State House.

Report by the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Soludo, Mr Chris Aburime stated that President Tinubu received the Anambra State Governor with excitement, describing him as his long standing friend of over 22 years.

Aburime said, “The President used the occasion to further congratulate Governor Soludo on his landslide victory in the just concluded Anambra gubernatorial election.

“Recall that President Tinubu had earlier issued a congratulatory message to Governor Soludo immediately the governorship election was concluded.”

Governor Soludo was declared winner with 73% of the votes cast by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Other details of the meeting were, however, not disclosed as the press Secretary told DAILY POST that both men went into a closed door meeting after the reception.

Politics

2027: I Will Resign If Tinubu Loses In Edo – Governor Okpebholo

Published

3 days ago

November 28, 2025

Editor

Edo State Governor Monday Okpebholor has vowed that President Bola Tinubu will win the 2027 presidential election in Edo State.

Okpebholor in an interview captured in a viral video vowed to resign if the outcome of the 2027 election does not favour the president in Edo State.

According to him, the entire people in Edo State are ready to vote for the president, citing projects that his (Okpebholor) administration executed since the All Progressives Congress, APC took over the state.

He claimed that there is no opposition in the state, stressing that everyone is supporting the ruling party ahead of the 2027 elections.

He said, “There is no opposition here in Edo everybody is for Asiwaju in this state.

“Tinubu is more popular than me in Edo state. If he doesn’t win the presidential election in Edo in 2027, I will resign.”