TheCable

The Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) says the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was over-ambitious during the 2023 elections.

Speaking during an interview with NAN on Wednesday, Yabagi Sani, IPAC national chairman, said some conditions did not allow the commission achieve its desired standards.

He said INEC must strive to rebuild the trust between itself, political parties and the electorate.

Sani also said INEC must strengthen its capacity to ensure the November 11 off-cycle elections are hitch-free.

“We as IPAC believe that INEC has learned some lessons and they know that there is a huge deficit of trust between the commission and Nigerians,” he said.

“This happened because INEC was over-ambitious and wanted things to work very well during the presidential elections, but underlying conditions did not allow them to achieve the high standards they set for themselves.

“So INEC will have to go back to its drawing board and take a look at things that went wrong and correct them.

“And this doesn’t mean that they should throw away their technological advancements, because they served their purpose and there is nothing wrong with the use of technology.”

Speaking further, Sani said the use of technology was not INEC’s problem in the conduct of the general election.

He said the problem was the conduct of its officials, political parties and their agents, and the conduct of Nigerians.

He called on the electoral umpire to improve and advance its technology in order to set a better standard for Nigeria on the global stage as the largest and strongest democratic nation in Africa.

“INEC must set and show good example in the Nov 11 off-cycle governorship election. It should show that we have technology and we can use them perfectly,” he said.