Obasanjo criticized INEC for failing to deploy the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Election Result Viewing Portal during the 2023 elections.
Abuja, Nigeria – Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has urged the immediate appointment of a credible leadership team for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to safeguard Nigeria’s electoral integrity.
He made the appeal during a recorded video address at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum held at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, over the weekend.
Obasanjo emphasized the need for rigorous vetting of the INEC chairman and staff to ensure that only individuals with impeccable, non-partisan reputations are appointed. “As a matter of urgency, we must make sure the INEC chairperson and his or her staff are thoroughly vetted,” he said. “The vetting exercise should yield dispassionate, non-partisan actors with impeccable reputations.”
The former president highlighted the necessity for INEC leadership across all levels—federal, state, local government, and municipal—with short tenures to limit political interference and corruption. He called for restoring trust in the electoral system, adding that the INEC chairperson must be transparently independent and incorruptible.
Describing Nigeria’s 2023 elections as “a travesty,” Obasanjo said that the exercise demonstrated the urgent need for electoral reforms. He insisted on measures to prevent electoral interference, both domestic and foreign, and urged Nigeria to enforce financial regulations for political campaigns.
The former Nigerian leader also advocated for a secure electoral infrastructure, emphasizing the need to protect technology used in election processes, such as collation, transmission, and verification. He recommended that penetration tests of the election system be conducted transparently and in the presence of international observers.
“Nigeria must ensure the physical security of the commissions and voters,” he added. “Our security apparatus must be professionally trained to protect our citizens during elections and not be participants in electoral malfeasance.”
Ballot security, he noted, is critical to preventing unauthorized access or tampering, whether manually or digitally. He stressed the importance of secure storage and transport of ballots to prevent interference.
He criticized INEC for failing to deploy the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Election Result Viewing Portal during the 2023 elections. These technologies, he argued, did not fail but were deliberately not used, resulting in widespread irregularities. “It was a case of inviting the fox into the hen house,” he stated.
The former president called for post-election audits and transparent processes to build public confidence in the electoral system. He condemned the practice of declaring winners in flawed elections and directing aggrieved parties to seek redress in courts where justice is uncertain. “This is the easiest and best way to kill electoral democracy,” he warned.
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