Northern Group Says Supreme Court Verdicts Vindicate INEC

The Northern Emancipation Network (NEN) said the validation of all the 15 governorship election disputes by the Supreme Court has vindicated the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the conduct of credible elections.
The group, in a statement signed by its chairman Suleiman Abbah, said with all the disputes resolved in favor of INEC, the chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, deserves to be celebrated at home and internationally.
The Supreme Court affirmed the governorship elections in Nasarawa, Kaduna, Gombe, Kebbi, Ogun, and Delta states as accurately declared by INEC.

The apex court had also earlier delivered judgement on Plateau, Lagos, Abia, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Benue, Zamfara, Ebonyi, and Kano governorship appeals all in favour of INEC’s declaration.
“This sums up the resolved election appeals to 15. In all the decided cases so far, no governor has been sacked from office.

“The elections of 2023 were pre-eminently a victory for the people of Nigeria. For the first time northern votes overwhelmingly went to one candidate and one party, and combined with those from other parts of the nation to comprehensively ensure Tinubu’s victory.
“Our jubilations in the North were not just over the victory of popular will but also over desperate attempts to subvert it.

“They were not just over the joy that a northerner, Professor Yakubu Mahmood had led INEC to conduct credible elections. They went beyond the relief that our nation did not go up in flames over disputed elections.
“They were about the possibility that we could look to a future without Boko Haram; that our young ones will get good education, acquire skills and get jobs; that corruption will be arrested, contained and eliminated.

“We celebrated in the hope of an end of poor governance; to leadership that run away from threats, and to leaders who remembered the people only when they needed them as voters,” the group noted.