Tinubu Wouldn’t Have Won If Elections Were Transparent – Sowore

Activist and former presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore has alleged that President Bola Tinubu would not have won the 2023 election if the results had been transmitted transparently.

Speaking to protesters gathered outside the National Assembly in Abuja on Wednesday, Sowore called for the mandatory real-time electronic transmission of election results, claiming it would prevent political manipulation.

“You all know, and you don’t have to argue with me about this, that there is nobody in the National Assembly that would have won an election if it was peer-to-peer,” he said.

“In fact, Godwin Akpabio never won the primaries of his party. Lawan never won the primaries of his party. And Tinubu couldn’t have become the president of Nigeria if elections were transmitted transparently.”

He stated that lawmakers were protecting their own interests.

“So they are protecting themselves, and we have a duty to protect ourselves. We have asked them that these are minimum irreducible, just asking you to transmit election results. They are not doing us a favour.”

He framed the call for transparent elections as part of a wider fight against political impunity in Nigeria.

“Beyond just the transmission electronically of results, we still have a lot of bad people to deal with. And as we are making these demands, we must also be demanding for the termination of the era of impunity and the terrible politicians that have been holding us to ransom,” he said.

Sowore also urged the National Assembly to legislate compulsory real-time transmission of election results.

“Mandatory is the word. So that there is no lawyer, no judge who is interpreting the votes of the Nigerian people in their millions with seven people at the Supreme Court. But let them pass a law that says mandatory transmission of elections is compulsory, in real time,” he stated.

He warned that Nigerians would hold officials accountable if electoral outcomes continued to be disputed.

“Because Nigerians have a bigger plan than the transmission of the results. And that is after the results are transmitted; if we do not agree with the position of the results, we will transmit the people into oblivion in our own time,” Sowore said.

The protest reflects mounting pressure from civil society groups for electoral reforms and transparency in Nigeria, as the country prepares for future elections.