2027:CUPP Raises Alarm On The Imminent Take Over Of INEC By APC
The main opposition megaphone in Nigeria, the Coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP, has strongly frowned at the alleged plans by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to appoint a person loyal to him personally as the next chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, from the Southwest.
In a Press Release signed by the Coalition’s national Spokesperson, Comrade Mark Adebayo, the Coalition insisted that “The president is playing a dangerous game of planning to ethnicize the appointment of the next person who will replace the outgoing INEC chairman who is notorious for conducting the worst series of election since the country’s return to democracy in 1999. Now, the President is scheming to appoint a yes-man to him as the next INEC chairman who will conduct even worse elections than the outgoing chairman.
“President Tinubu can and will sacrifice whatever little is left of INEC’s institutional credibility to re-rig himself back to power in 2027. The signs are already manifesting in the ways the ruling Party is orchestrating crises in opposition political Parties as to weaken them significantly prior to the 2027 general elections, especially the presidential election.
“Having realized that the APC cannot win in a free and fair contest due to the horrible records of the Tinubu corrupt and inefficient administration where economic hardship and insecurity are the predominant features, the president has allegedly perfected plans to further compromise the election management body to serve his personal purpose of election results manipulation.
“The current INEC did and has continued to do hatchet’s job for the ruling APC. In their fear of confronting their own skeleton in the 2027 polls, in addition to disrupting opposition Parties, the government is also pressuring INEC not to register more political Parties, only to consider just a few that they themselves will be in control of. That’s the reason for the terribly poor judgment of the INEC leadership on the 14 political associations that INEC approved their letters of intent recently out of 171 associations that wrote INEC. It is a deliberate gameplan to continue to stiffle the democratic space in the service of powers that be. INEC has been turned into a branch of the ruling Party to serve its hidden agenda.
“We call on Nigerians to support the CUPP in our advocacy for a comprehensive electoral reforms ahead of the 2027 general elections starting with legislating electronic transmission of results from the polling units into law without any chance of a contrived glitch.
“The international community should pay strong attention to Nigeria’s democratic process and act promptly to save our democracy and country from the stranglehold of electoral bandits. We call on the international community to sanction all INEC officials and politically exposed persons who are actively contributing to disrupting Nigeria’s democracy either by sponsoring internal crises in other political Parties or helping election riggers to manipulate election results or unleashing thugs on opponents, and related criminalities.
“Appointment of a Yoruba person or any other appointtee from any part of the country with questionable pedigree will be unacceptable to Nigerians and will be stoutly resisted. In addition to the unprecedented suffering and burgeoning insecurity in the country, the President is only preoccupied with retaining power by hook or crook starting with his alleged plan to impose a questionable character on the nation’s election management. This government has taken Nigerians for granted enough and we caution it to avoid instigating an unmitigatable cataclysmic implosion that could threaten the country’s stability and democracy.
“Democracy is run sustainably on the basis of integrity of elections which have been largely absent in Nigeria in the last ten years. A roguish electoral system that the APC is orchestrating is a recipé for state failure.”
