Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has described the recent Supreme Court ruling on the February 25, 2023 presidential election as “another judicial blow on the use of technology to reform the electoral process in Nigeria.” 
  
It lamented that the judgment on use of IReV had empowered manual collation of results and created room for “falsification of results and malpractices.”
  
Addressing the media ahead of this weekend’s governorship election in Kogi, Imo, Bayelsa in Abuja at the weekend, TMG chairman, Auwal Rafsanjani, stressed the need for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to effectively deploy technology to enhance credibility.
   
He also opposed the alleged request by the Imo State government to book all hotels in Owerri between November 4 and 11, stating that the move was to frustrate domestic and foreign observers.
  
The Commissioner for Tourism, Jerry Egemba, in a memo to Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of hotels, had reportedly said the current administration was paying for all rooms, covering the aforementioned period.
   
The correspondence, according to the civil society organisation, was titled: “Request for reservation of all your hotel rooms from November 4 to November 11, 2023.
   
However, Rafsanjani argued: “This simply implies that the state government has effectively barred domestic and foreign observers from visiting Imo ahead of the election.
  
“For the sake of democracy in Nigeria, TMG hopes these allegations are not true, and that the purported memo is also not true, as this would present a blow to the democratisation process in Nigeria, and give others in power the boldness to thwart democratic processes through barbaric acts and practices. TMG urges the state government to immediately debunk this allegation, and assure observers of their safety in Owerri and other parts of the state. Also, the Federal Government must investigate this weighty allegation and prevail on the state government to revert to democratic tenets.”