Speaking to journalists after the Presidential Elections Petition Tribunal (PEPT) had delivered judgment upholding the victory of President Bola Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election, one of the senior lawyers of Mr Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), in disagreeing with the judgment, described the election as “the worst ever in the history of Nigeria, Africa, nay, in the history of the entire world.”
Since the legal counsel who offered this logically outlandish, overly emotional and outrightly irrational opinion was obviously in his late sixties or early seventies, he was unlikely to be unfamiliar with the flawed Western regional and federal elections of the First Republic that led to the onset of military rule in 1966; the recklessly rigged 1983 elections in which the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) won a ‘moonslide’ victory resulting in the military coup that terminated the Second Republic or the notoriously perverse elections of 2003 and 2007 in this dispensation during the ignoble reign at the centre of the now largely moribund Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Yet the elderly Igbo lawyer chose to discountenance the realities of history and paint an exaggerated and utterly distorted picture of the 2023 presidential elections for obvious partisan, ethnic and possibly religious considerations. His client, Peter Obi, still implausibly and ridiculously maintains that he won an election in which he not only came a distant third but failed to secure the constitutionally stipulated nationwide spread of votes imperative to be validly elected as President of Nigeria.
It is unfortunate that a body as supposedly eminent as the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) continues to be inexplicably as difficult to distinguish from Peter Obi’s partisans in their assessment of elections in Nigeria as well as in subtly casting aspersions on the integrity and credibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). At the opening of its Second Plenary Meeting, which was held in Ede, Osun State, this week, the CBCN commended the INEC for the off-cycle Osun State governorship election, which it described as giving Nigerians “a rare glimmer of hope.”
Declaring that the conduct of free, fair and credible elections in 2027 is non-negotiable, the CBCN President and Archbishop of Kaduna, Most Reverend Mathew Manoso Ndagoso, urged the Federal Government and INEC to replicate the transparent template of the Osun State off-cycle election in 2027, saying that “There is a need to ensure that voters’ cards are easily available to all eligible voters, removing any obstacles and helping to culminate in election results that reflect the true choice of the people.”
This is a needless and superfluous sermon coming from an otherwise respected religious body that has not deemed it fit, first of all, to apologise for John Cardinal Onaiyekan’s assertion, on its behalf on Arise Television, that neither President Tinubu nor INEC could be trusted to conduct free, fair and credible elections. The CBCN was proven disastrously wrong in Osun. Not only has the INEC been widely applauded for the efficiency and integrity it deployed in conducting the election, but President Tinubu has also been equally commended for his demonstrable commitment to transparent and fair elections devoid of undue deployment of federal might before, during and after the Osun polls.
But then, even before the Osun governorship poll, the CBCN cannot claim ignorance of the fact that, under Professor Joash Ola Amupitan as National Chairman of INEC, off-cycle governorship elections have also been held in Anambra and Ekiti States. The ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) retained its grip on the Awka Government House with the re-election of Professor Chukuma Soludo, while Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (BAO) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was emphatically and expectedly re-elected for a second term in Ekiti.
Just as in Osun, the off-cycle elections in Anambra and Ekiti were widely commended by stakeholders, including credible election observers, for the enhanced efficiency of the electoral umpire, the professionalism of security agencies and the adherence by the Federal Government to the rule of law. I am unaware of any litigation arising from these off-cycle elections, a marked departure from previous electoral contests.
There have also been the Area Council elections in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, in which the APC won in four councils and the PDP in one. Again, these results were widely deemed to substantially reflect the will of the majority of voters. The APC won 12 of 16 legislative by-elections conducted in 13 states on August 16, 2025, with the APGA, PDP and NNPP winning one seat each. And on June 20, 2026, the APC won five of six contested legislative seats in six states, and the PDP won one. These elections did not elicit credible protests or result in any litigation.
Why then is it only the August 15, 2026, governorship election in Osun, indisputably won by Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party (AP), that the CBCN perceives as offering Nigerians what it ridiculously describes as “a glimmer of hope”? The truth of the matter is that, along with a preponderant section of the media, the CBCN is deeply involved in a continuing conspiracy to discredit the 2023 presidential elections and impugn the image and reputation of INEC.
One of the CBCN ‘s leading lights, the undoubtedly cerebral John Cardinal Onaiyekan, openly supported Mr Peter Obi of the LP in the 2023 presidential election. Obviously agreeing with Obi’s absurdly wild claim to have won the election, Onaiyekan advocated that President Tinubu should not be sworn in until the Supreme Court had delivered judgment in the presidential election litigation. The revered cleric did not cite any legal or constitutional basis for his arbitrary suggestion.
Of course, Cardinal Onaiyekan has the fundamental right to support any candidate in any election. But once he opts for open partisanship, he forfeits the privilege of being treated and respected as a detached and statesmanlike contributor to and participant in political discourse. In treating the off-cycle Osun governorship election as an exception, the CBCN, deliberately or inadvertently, contributes to the intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt tainting of the 2023 polls as “the worst ever in Nigeria’s history”.
Pray, were the 2023 elections rigged in the five Southeastern States in which Peter Obi won over 90 per cent of votes cast, the only region that exhibited such a uni-directional voting pattern in the election? Were Peter Obi’s victories in Lagos or the FCT, Abuja, functions of election rigging? How about Obi’s victories in largely Christian-populated South-South States or Christian-dominated in the North-Central, such as Nasarawa or Plateau? Were they the outcome of election rigging? Or were the 2023 elections free, fair and credible in areas won by Obi but rigged in states won by Tinubu?
In the same vein, was it not the same INEC that conducted elections in states won by Tinubu and the APC that also organised the elections in states like Adamawa, Katsina, Kaduna, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe, Sokoto, Kebbi, Taraba, Osun and Akwa Ibom won by Atiku Abubakar and the PDP? The 2023 presidential election was one of the most competitive ever in Nigeria’s history, and the closeness of the contest was one measure of its credibility.
That election reminds one of the 1979 presidential election won by Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) but which Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and his passionate, teeming supporters in the Southwest, including this writer, erroneously believed was rigged against him. In reality, there was no pathway to an Awolowo victory in that election when all relevant variables are considered. It was no different with Peter Obi in the 2023 polls.
Yet, a ‘heavy-metal’ intellectual body like the CBCN, with most of its members being PhD degree holders, continues to lend its considerable weight to a narrative seeking to sustain the dubious, even criminal, demarketing of an election for which INEC deserves praise. Of course, no elections can be flawless, as even ongoing events in America’s 250-year-old democracy are showing.
But the 2023 elections were reasonably free, fair and credible, ranking in integrity far superior to the 2003 and 2007 general elections, which were routinely marred by rampant ballot box snatching and illegal stuffing, widespread underage voting, bloating of voters’ registers, over-voting across polling units and in which INEC arbitrarily announced results according to the whims of the ruling party right from its headquarters in Abuja. Such a practice is no longer legally possible.
However, reforms introduced by successive revisions of the Electoral Act, continuous upscale of the use of technology, continued enhanced autonomy of electoral processes from INEC bureaucratic control, constantly improving voters’ enlightenment and awareness, among others, have led to significant improvements in the organisation and conduct of different aspects of elections in Nigeria that cannot be credibly and honestly denied.
Of course, problems such as sporadic acts of violence or vote buying remain dark spots in the conduct of elections in the country and should continue to be condemned and strenuously tackled. But there is a difference between honest criticism of perceived defects in electoral processes and the kind of stock-and-barrel denialism engaged in by the CBCN and most of the Nigerian media that continue to denigrate and demonise the 2023 elections all because they find its outcome unpalatable and difficult to accept.
Even more dangerously, the CBCN and a brazenly partisan media are subtly laying the foundation for the erosion of the credibility of the 2027 elections once the outcome does not reflect their wishes. This is why no effort must be spared to vigorously expose the blatant falsehoods manufactured to discredit the 2023 elections, especially when perpetrators of such crass attempts to misinform and mislead the gullible are supposed custodians of our moral and spiritual values.
NOTE: Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Theliberationnews
