HURIWA backs LP on nationwide protest over election materials

Urges Nigerians to vote competent governors

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), yesterday, backed the planned nationwide protest by Labour Party (LP) to offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to enable its lawyers inspect the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and other materials used for conduct of the disputed February 25,2023 presidential election.

In a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the group recalled that INEC was ordered by the Presidential Elections Petitions Tribunal to allow LP and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) legal teams inspect the items in question before the former, last week, approached the Appeal Court in Abuja for variation of the order, which it got to reconfigure the BVAS for this weekend’s governorship and state legislative elections.

HURIWA stated that the electoral body could not cherry-pick judgments to obey, noting that it was “hypocrisy of the highest order for INEC to comply with the decision of the court that allowed it to reconfigure the BVAS machines deployed in the over 170,000 polling units, but disobeyed the court’s judgment allowing the LP and the PDP to access electoral items.”

The LP had faulted the commission’s claim of backing up retrieved data from the BVAS without presence of independent witnesses and representatives of political parties.

BESIDES, the rights group advised Nigerians against voting based on political affiliations during the gubernatorial and legislative polls.

In another statement, it charged the citizenry to elect their governors based on merit, competence and track records. Onwubiko reminded voters that governors largely don’t listen to their parties and work on own blueprints, warning that voting in someone based on political platform or moral rectitude of its presidential flag-bearer remains a political miscalculation.

HURIWA said it is intervening to recommend to voters those who are tested, trusted, credible and would actualise developmental blueprints, else its over 10,000 members would embark on civil disobedience against them, if they detract from their avowed programmes and initiatives espoused during campaigns.