The gubernatorial election of March 11, 2023, is swiftly approaching while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) swamped with lawsuits is ill-prepared to conduct another election. The only chance INEC has is to redeem itself and build the people’s trust in the electoral process after the presidential election debacle gradually slipped away. It is highly unlikely that the gubernatorial elections will be a tad better than the just concluded presidential elections.
With the outcome of the just concluded Presidential elections, the whole country seems to be brewing trouble. The INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu’s integrity in question, different inter and intra-tribal issues in certain states, election results being contested in the courts, gubernatorial candidates switching parties and parties endorsing their opposition candidates and other unresolved issues of discrepancies in the result uploaded, electoral malpractices and violence ad many others that occurred in the presidential election have yet to be fully addressed, three days to the gubernatorial. The gubernatorial election might just be a repeat of the presidential election or even worse.
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The verdict of the court hearing scheduled for 8th March 2023 to rule on INEC’s plea for reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BIVAS) in preparation for the governorship election might forestall the governorship election if the court rules in favour of the Labour party and the People’s Democratic party. At this rate, the electoral process and INEC would become a laughing stock to Nigerians and to other spectators and the attributes of free, fair, credible, and transparent will be a thing of the past.
Considering INEC’s humungous budget, the long span of time they had to prepare for the presidential elections, and the failure it turned out to be, Nigerians can only sit back and watch as the drama continues in the gubernatorial elections. While most have lost faith in the electoral body and process, those left with the zeal to vote are either doing it for selfish reasons or just to play their part in the grand scheme
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