The Labour Party has demanded for a forensic investigation into the expenditure of budgeted disbursements and donor funds received by the Independent National Electoral Commission as well as the N300 billions of Nigerian taxpayers funds used for the 2023 general elections.
At a media event in Abuja on Thursday, Otumba Akin Osuntokun, the director general of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, made this demand on behalf of the Labour Party and the council.
He claimed that as compensation for what was likely “the worst election conducted in recent memory,” Nigerians were entitled to information about how these funds were used. According to Vanguard.
“We also unequivocally demand the immediate dismissal from office and prosecution of Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, and the beginning of forensic financial investigation, into the expenditure of budgeted disbursements and Donors’ funds received by INEC…not the least of which is the N300 billion appropriated from the National purse, as well as other funds and materials from international donor agencies,” Osuntokun said.
He thought it was depressing that the APC and President Bola Tinubu’s spokespeople decided to criticise the EU Observer Mission’s report on the 2023 General Election while celebrating only some of the reports on the 2019 Election from the same observer group.
The campaign director for the Labour Party (LP) stated, “The Labour Party and the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Organisation condemn vehemently, the negative and jundiced responses on the EU Report and other Election Observers’ reports, by the Spokespersons of the APC administration and other Ill-informed persons, which are totally in discord with the mood of the nation, at this time, and which also present an embarrassing contrast to the celebration of the 2019 Election reports, from these same Observer groups.”
Additionally, Osuntokun pleaded with “those who have deployed hired demonstrators to the offices of the EU in regard to their election report to cease from any further wastage of public monies, as the purpose of intimidation is without foundation and has failed from the start.
We applaud the international community and civic society for their ongoing assistance in expanding and solidifying our democracy, the speaker concluded.
“The international community should take immediate and appropriate punitive action against Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, Barrister Festus Okoye, and other top administrative and field staff of INEC, directly complicit in the desecration of these elections,” the final Observer Group reports state.
Umaroo1 (
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