Kenneth Okonkwo: Election Court’s Declaration Doesn’t Matter If INEC Doesn’t Upload Complete Election Result

Former Labour Party Presidential Council Spokesperson, Kenneth Okonkwo, has said that the declaration of the Presidential Election Petition Court does not matter if the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) does not upload the full and unmanipulated results of the February 25 poll.

In an interview with ARISE NEWS on Monday, Okonkwo called INEC a “failed organization that cannot even live up to the dictates of the law.” He said that the organisation was supposed to provide the results of the election from all polling units, stating section 62, sub section 2 and 3 of the Electoral Act as he said, “Whether it is a pre-election or post-election issue, the law says INEC should update, compile election result on polling unit by polling unit basis throughout Nigeria, and whoever wishes to receive a copy of it should be given one”

Okonkwo went on to say that INEC had failed to deliver on this as the results, months after the election, have still not been properly uploaded. He said “They just brought up figures and announced to the whole world shamefully after months of such declaration. 18,088 uploaded results are still blurred, blank and nothing given by INEC. There is no court judgement that can overrule that because we were given such things from the INEC IReV portal.”

The former spokesman maintained that the judiciary must be held accountable to statutory laws, as they only have the right to interpret the law, and no to change it. “Whoever is telling you that anybody won that election, it’s a conjecture, and this is no matter what the court says. Because statutory laws in our hierarchy of laws in Nigeria is superior to decided cases, and time has come where we should be holding the judiciary accountable to statutory laws. They do not have the right to make laws. The only right they have is to interpret it,” he said.

Okonkwo then said, “So, what we are saying, it’s not about who won or lost, we are saying that election should be free, fair, and credible. Credible means believable. Justice should not only be done, it should be seen as done. Please, if you have seen the result polling unit by polling unit, either based on original unmutilated form EC8a or electronically stored and uploaded result of INEC polling unit by polling unit in 176,000 units in Nigeria, please, show me, and I will be willing to tow your line. You can’t come and bamboozle Nigerians.

“As long as those results are hidden in shadows, not in substance, whatever is the result, whatever is the declaration by the court, you cannot convince anybody anywhere in the world, because it is not the judiciary that puts people in power in a democracy, it is the people. The people have voted, show them the results of their vote, so that they will, with certainty, tell you, yes, we believe.”

Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi

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