…alerts International Community amidst calls for clean voters register
By Kehinde Jacobs
Renowned Political Economist and chieftain of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Professor Pat Utomi, has raised alarm over what he described as plots by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to compromise the 2027 general elections, warning that growing public anger could lead to anarchy if not urgently addressed.
Utomi, in a strongly worded statement on Tuesday titled “INEC INEC INEC”, accused the electoral commission of selective trust in technology, saying the commission distrusts technology when it comes to uploading election results to the IReV portal, but trusts the same technology to “confuse the voters register.”
According to him, Nigerians across the country are angry and suspicious of INEC’s handling of the voters register ahead of the polls.
“The people are angry everywhere. I cannot walk through an airport without people surrounding me and saying this is advance rigging and that they may have to take the laws into their hands,” Utomi stated.
The former presidential candidate said his intervention was aimed at averting a breakdown of law and order, calling on all political parties, regardless of affiliation, to unite and demand a clean and transparently displayed voters register.
“To avert anarchy I am calling on all the political parties to come together and demand a fully clean and transparently displayed register,” he said.
Utomi also called on the international community, especially international organisations and donor agencies that support elections in Nigeria, to prevail on INEC and alert the commission to the consequences of a flawed process.
He went further to describe the alleged manipulation of the voters register as having the moral equivalence of genocide, urging that officials of INEC from clerical levels to the Chairman should be prepared to face trial at the International Criminal Court, ICC.
“It is also important to alert that this is the moral equivalence of genocide and that the International Criminal Court (ICC) be prepared to put on trial INEC officials from clerical levels to the Chairman,” he added.
The professor warned that those who believe they can determine election outcomes by controlling the counting process may be setting the stage for a popular revolt.
“They may have read Stalin that it is not those who vote but those who count the vote that determine elections but they may be about to learn that those who miscount the votes may be statistics of revolutions stoked by the anger of the people,” Utomi declared.
Utomi’s statement comes amid heightened scrutiny of INEC’s preparations for the 2027 elections, with opposition parties and civil society organisations repeatedly demanding greater transparency in the management of the voters register and the deployment of technology for results transmission.
INEC is yet to respond to Utomi’s allegations as of press time.