PortHarcourt based legal luminary, Chief OCJ Okocha (SAN) has condemned the 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections, describing it as not credible.
Speaking in an interview conducted by Barrister Higher King, a human rights lawyer in Port Harcourt, on his experience at his polling unit during Saturday’s polls, the Senior Advocate of Ngeria and Former Chairman of the Body of Benchers, knocked INEC for poorly managing the electoral process.
Okocha who holds the award of Distinguished Service Star of Rivers State (DSSRS) and Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) also lampooned INEC’s conduct of the election and scored it low.
According to the Learned Silk, he was disenfranchised of voting in Saturday’s election.
His words; “My name is OCJ Okocha . I am a Senior Advocate of Nigeria(SAN), practising law in Port Harcourt. On Saturday 25th of February, 2023, in my village at Rukpakulosi, I went to vote, When I got to my polling unit, I brought out my PVC and gave the INEC woman my number. She put the number on the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine and said she could not find my name. I went back home and stayed at home throughout.
“It was later in the afternoon, one of my village men called me and said there is another BVAS machine that was with the lady and it contained the names of people from N-Z, while the first one had A-N.” He asked if I can come back? I said I am not coming back that INEC has been known to bungle our elections.They have done it three times in the past. They have done it again.
“They started announcing results even in states where we heard that some local government areas did not have the opportunity to vote, either materials didn’t come or they didn’t come on time or materials came and came incomplete. I had heard earlier that they said those who were not allowed to vote will vote. When and how? No date was given and no modalities stated.
” It is regrettable that an institution such as INEC that had for so long through the Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu has been announcing that they are very ready for the elections. But what have we today, inconclusive voting, disenfranchisement of citzens. I was disenfranchised personally. I heard a lady wailing on TV how she was disenfrachised and how she walked long distance to come and vote yet BVAS machine was not working. So, it is very regrettable. I am totally disappointed that INEC that has been giving us assurrances that everything was in place was not ready. It is very clear to me that INEC was not ready or they have some secret agenda’, he stated.
On whether he has confidence in the results that was turned out by INEC, he said, ” How can it be verifiable and satisfactory results when so many were disenfranchised? There were even threats that I saw in some areas of Lagos. An electoral officer or people standing around were threatening those who came to vote specifically for Peter Obi”.
