“We Have No Allegiance To Any Party Or Candidate” – INEC Tells Atiku-Led Protesters

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has addressed members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who staged a protest over the 2023 presidential election.

KanyiDaily had earlier reported that the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and his running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa, on Monday led a protest at the INEC headquarters in Abuja.

The PDP National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, who was among the protesters maintained that the INEC must cancel the election won by Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Addressing the aggrieved party members on Monday, the INEC national commissioner for information, Festus Okoye said the protest letter received from the PDP will be transmitted to INEC national chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, adding that the “grievances” will be addressed.

He said, “I have received this particular protest letter on behalf of the chairman of INEC and I promise you that this letter will be transmitted to him.

“If there are remedial issues to be dealt with, we are going to deal with those remedial issues. But I want to assure you that this commission is a listening commission. This commission is a public trust and this commission belongs to the Nigerian people.

“This commission does not have any allegiance to any political party. We don’t have allegiance to any political party. We don’t have any allegiance to any candidate. Our allegiance is to the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I want to thank all of you for the peaceful way this protest has been conducted.

“The commission belongs to the Nigerian people and whatever grievances there are, we will look into all those grievances. If there are grievances that can be redressed, we will redress those grievances but I want to plead that all of us should continue to be peaceful and all of us should continue to respect the integrity of the commission and also the integrity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“I am going to go and hand over the protest letter to the chairman of the commission and I want to assure you that the commission will meet over this letter, look into it and address some of the issues.”

Meanwhile, the INEC asked the tribunal to modify the orders granted to Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) to inspect materials used for the last presidential election.