• Allege voter intimidation

From Okwe Obi, Abuja

The dust raised as a result of the outcome of the February 25 presidential election is yet to settle as some Nigerians under the aegis of Good Governance Institute, protested in London, alleging that the process was marred by electoral fraud and voters’ suppression.

The group reminded the United Kingdom that it spent £5 million during the Nigerian election, hence it should show interest in ensuring that the right things were done.

Founder of Good Governance Institute (GGI), Marcel Ngogbehei, who led the protest, knocked the Nigerian government for showing less attention to the security of the voters as political thugs harassed and intimidated voters.

Ngogbehei argued that the world would be affected if Nigeria with over 200 million population is faced with crisis.

He said it was time for the international communities to get involved and avoid looming crisis over the outcome of the 2023 presidential election which some said was fraudulent following some irregularities and also the inability of the electoral umpire to pause the result announcement and resolve the irregularities as they did in one of the state elections.

He wondered why the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) flushed the plea of Nigerians in loo by announcing the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed around 4am as the winner.

“Nigeria has over 200 million people, a crisis in Nigeria will affect the entire world. This is the time that the entire world, this is the time for the international community to get involved.

“It is the people that determine who leads them, not a few individuals, what we are saying is that the people’s vote must count, we must protect the right of the people to choose their leaders, we cannot hand it over to few individuals.

“What we are saying is that the British government must take interest in ensuring that the right of the citizens to choose their leaders is protected. The British government cannot spend £5 million British taxpayers money in Nigeria and turn the other eye while we have a fictitious election.

“Over £5m of UK Tax payers money was committed to the Nigerian Elections, and all we got was this sham, the British Government has one of the best intelligence agencies and we’re certain that they must have reported accurately what transpired in Nigeria.

“The Foreign Secretary has no business congratulating anyone in this elections until the entire process is concluded doing this amounts to taking sides.

“All we are saying is that we need to save Nigeria’s democracy, the Nigerian government has a duty to protect all Nigerians to ensure that they vote, what we witnessed in the February 2023 election was intimidation, while the security agencies and government looked the other way and political thugs took over the streets of the country,” he said.

According to him, the international community must begin to hold INEC to account, by asking them to follow their laid down guidelines.

“They have a duty to demand from INEC the effective use of their citizens tax money in Nigeria”, he added.