Razaq Bamidele
President, Igbo Youth Congress (IYC), Comrade Bright Ezeocha who doubles as the Head of the Young Igbo Empowerment Foundation, has described the just concluded presidential election as a charade saying, the youth have lost the confidence in the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof. Mamud Yakubu and the Commission he heads.
Reacting to the presidential election that threw up the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) up as the President-elect, the youthful right activist expressed disappointment the INEC boss over reneging on the promise that the results of the election would be transmitted electronically from the various polling units immediately after counting, saying resorting to manual collation several days after the election had concluded was a sign of fraud.
According to him, the assurance of instant transmission of results by the INEC boss gingered the youth to troop out en masse to discharge their civic duties with the high hope of getting instant result lamenting that, “right now, the youth are eternally disappointed in Professor Yakub as well as in the commission he heags because they have been forced back to their cocoon and some of them may not come out to vote again!”
The Imo State born youth leader wondered why the authorities that has somebody in mind to be installed as President lured the populace out with the bait that their efforts would count only to come out at the end of a lot of wasted time to declare their anointed candidate, regretting that the treatment meted out to the electorate on February 25 was condemnable, uncalled for and a very sad experience.
The faulty BVAS is another source of Ezeocha’s anger when he complained that, some of the gadgets were never working and attempts by the officials handling them in some cases could not rectify the problem even after they had contacted their bosses on the phone, wondering how the youth who have been disenfranchised now could be enticed back during the subsequent polls!