Judiciary Must Not Be Used To Compromise 2023 Election, HURIWA Warns

Fearing that millions of enthusiastic young Nigerians who are now energised to participate actively in electing Nigeria’s next President may stage nation-wide mass protest against judicial impunity, a civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), on Thursday, warned that the judiciary must not be used to compromise the 2023 general elections through politically motivated suits sponsored by persons of ill intentions who also double as enemies of democracy.

HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement, condemned a secret suit initiated to force the Independent National Electoral Commission to stop the use of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the coming general elections.

The group also said the electoral umpire must expunge questionable names from its voter register to disallow electoral fraud and dissuade politicians’ wont to bank on dead and underage persons to inflate their votes during elections.

HURIWA was reacting to an alarm raised by the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) over alleged plots to compromise INEC’s voter register, saying plots had been perfected in 21 states under the leadership of governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in favour of the party.

The CUPP spokesperson, Ikenga Ugochinyere, reportedly presented a copy of the suit filed at the Owerri Federal High Court on August 24 and copies of voter register with faceless persons from countries like Cameroon, Togo, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Zambia, among others.

Commenting, Onwubiko said: “The alert on the secret case in court trying to stop the use of BVAS in the coming general elections must be stopped forthwith. It is illegal and undemocratic and the court must not become pawn in the hands of moneybags and election-riggers.

“Beyond delisting 1,126,359 invalid records, INEC must wipe out double, multiple, and ineligible registrants from the voter register. Democracy must be defended at all cost and neither the ruling APC nor any political party at all must be allowed to rig itself into power at the centre again in the 2023 elections.”