The Coalition of United Political Parties and Inter-Party Advisory Council have supported the report by the Nigerian Civil Society Situation Room on the 2019 general election, which described the elections as a sham.
In separate interviews with The PUNCH, they distanced themselves from the claim by the National Interest Group opposed to the report.
The NCCSR, a coalition of over 70 CSOs led by Clement Nwankwo, had regretted that the Independent National Electoral Commission conducted the elections without fixing the lapses identified in the 2015 electoral law.
But rejecting the NCCSR report, the NIG, which boasts chairmen of 75 political parties, had said it was not a true reflection of the realities of the 2019 elections.
However, the co-spokesperson of CUPP, Mark Adebayo, described the 75 membership strength of NIG as “a false claim.”
He said, “I wish to state clearly that it is a false claim that the group represented 75 political parties. If it does, they should name the parties. You can’t just go to the media and be making bogus claims of representing the number of political parties that are not named.
The National Secretary of IPAC, Georgina Dakpokpo, said the purported 75 political parties and candidates were non-existent.
The National Chairman of National Interest Party and Deputy National Secretary of IPAC, Eunice Atuejide, said “the so-called NIG is a fraud.”
Also speaking, the National Publicity Secretary of the Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, urged the public to ignore the NIG, as according to him, they make no sense to any reasonable person.
He said, “The only sad thing is that they go under the name ‘National Interest’; the late Gani Fawehinmi must have turned in his grave seeing what injury the beneficiaries of his battle for a multiparty system are doing to the democratic process. These are supposed to be opposition parties that should be interested in cleaner elections in the future if they are on the field for altruistic purposes.”
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