The National Peace Committee (NPC) says it received a surge of appeals to step in and annul the 2023 presidential elections, News About Nigeria reports
The Former head of state and NPC chair, Abdulsalami Abubakar, shared this information while presenting the committee’s comprehensive report on the elections.
The report, unveiled in Abuja, provided a detailed account of the NPC’s efforts to promote electoral integrity.
According to Abdulsalami, the committee encountered secretive attempts by various individuals and groups to manipulate the electoral process.
He said these attempts aimed to sway the outcome of the elections.
The NPC’s report shed light on these incidents and the committee’s response to them.
”As election day progressed, criticism and counter-criticism became abundant. The NPC was already being faced with a flurry of phone calls and the need to call INEC to order. The Peace Committee was flooded with requests for intervention,” the report reads.
“Both the Chairman of the Committee, General Abdulsalami A. Abubakar, the Convener, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, and the Head of the NPC Secretariat, Fr. Atta Barkindo, were inundated with calls, requests, and petitions demanding the intervention of the NPC.
“Some of the requests wanted the NPC to prevail on INEC to stop collating election results because there were gross violations and a lack of compliance with the electoral act.
“Others demanded that the tenets of the peace accord signed were not adhered to and therefore the Committee should call for the cancellation of the election entirely.
“The most significant call was related to the 25% threshold for Abuja as the Federal Capital Territory. Some of the analysts who reached out to the committee asked that the final election result should not be announced because the resumptive president-elect did not score the required 25% as stated in the electoral act. If anything, there should be a runoff.”
The report said the Centre for Reform and Public Advocacy, a civil society organisation (CSO), criticised the NPC for its silence following the election, despite the numerous petitions and potential consequences.
The centre said that while the NPC had encouraged peaceful elections beforehand, it failed to issue a formal statement after the election to address the outcome and prevent potential violence.
Responding to the criticisms, the report explained that the NPC’s role was purely moral and not constitutional.
“The NPC has no mandate to arrest violators of process or interfere with the constitutional duties of INEC. It is set up to provide moral intervention, defined by mediation and moral persuasion, to ensure that there is peace,” the report said.
