No politician can rig 2023 elections – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Friday insisted that no politician can rig the forthcoming general election in the country. 

The outgoing Resident Electoral Commissioner in Oyo State, Dr. Mutiu Agboke, said this while delivering a lecture in Ibadan as part of activities marking the 83rd birthday anniversary of the chairman and founder of an Ibadan-based radio station Splash FM, High Chief Adebayo Akande.

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He alleged that some university lecturers who served as collation officers in the previously conducted elections in some states were guilty of aiding and abetting electoral related offences in the country.

Agboke stated that an electoral officer who was supposed to serve as an unbiased umpire put on the gab of a politician by querying the decision of the electorate to vote for a particular candidate in Oyo State.

He disclosed that his co-travellers came to his office to mount pressure on him not to announce the result in order for the entire state not to be engulfed in flame.

Responding to the presentation by a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Professor Femi Bamiro, on his experience as a Returning Officer, Agboke said, “some of your colleagues were destructive and are still destructive with no interest of state at heart.”

The commission said with over 700,000 Permanent Voters Cards yet to be collected in Oyo State, the residents of the state were not ready for the elections.