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Senator Victor Umeh has warned against a system in which courts determine the winners of elections in Nigeria, insisting that votes cast by citizens must be the basis for deciding electoral outcomes.
Umeh, who represents Anambra Central in the Senate, spoke on Monday while reacting to a call by Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate Peter Obi for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that votes count in the 2027 elections.
Obi had, during an earlier engagement, urged the electoral umpire to guarantee that the votes of Nigerians would be properly counted and reflected in the final results.
Speaking on Channels Television on Monday, Umeh backed the position, saying the 2027 election must be free, fair and credible.
Umeh said: “On the aspect of my own presidential candidate, Peter Obi, having said that in this 2027 election, if they fail to count the votes, then they would count those who didn’t make the votes count.
It’s a statement that is not harmful in the sense that what we want is a credible, free, and fair election where all the votes will be counted and recorded in the prescribed forms, and those votes should be the determinants of the actual election.”
He said his concern was informed by past electoral experiences in which voters cast their ballots for particular candidates only to see results announced differently.
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“We have said this because of experience in the past, because people will not be called out to vote on election day, and they voted for a particular candidate, and the result that would come out in the end will be the opposite,” Umeh said.
He added: “So it’s not about promising a free and fair election; they have to do that to the latter to ensure that confidence in the electoral process will be enhanced, and the only way to enhance and protect the sanctity of the ballot box is by ensuring that the votes of the electorate count in determining who wins the election.”
Umeh criticised the practice of announcing disputed results and leaving aggrieved candidates to seek redress in court.
“So it’s not about people being called out again in 2027; they will make their choices, cast their votes, and in the end you announce fake results and ask anybody who feels bad about the result to go to court,” he said.
“The court should not determine the outcome of elections.”
The senator also described it as a bad electoral culture for candidates to approach elections with the expectation of being declared winners regardless of the votes received.
“It’s a very bad culture in Nigeria that people will go into an election with the mindset that they will be declared winner at all costs, whether they receive the votes or not, and ask the people who actually won the election but were denied to go to court.”
