Utomi reveals plan for civil society’s parallel IReV strategy for 2027 elections
By Ishaya Ibrahim
Professor Pat Utomi, a renowned political economist and leader of the Movement for Credible Elections (MCE), has announced plans to unveil a parallel result-viewing portal for the 2027 general elections, similar to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) IReV platform.
In an interview on Arise News on Tuesday, Utomi said the parallel platform will provide Nigerians with live and accurate election results.
He explained that the initiative is a joint effort by several civil society organisations to counter alleged rigging strategies by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the polls.
When asked whether the platform would breach the Electoral Act, Utomi said it would not, adding that it aligns with the constitutional provision for freedom of information.
Utomi accused the ruling party of planting “several legal landmines” to undermine the opposition, claiming INEC is complicit in efforts to frustrate opposition parties.
He said: “Freedom of association in Nigeria is truly vitiated by this business of whether you can move to this party, the kind of timetable that INEC deliberately forced on the system to prevent people from having the flexibility of options. And then they have come with their consensus thing and all of that. That’s fine.
“But I tell you, it reminds me of Argentina. Argentina and the United States were at the same level of development in 1928. Argentina, with the Peronist movement and all of that, playing the kind of games these people are playing today, brought their country to a place where by the 1990s it was at West Africa level GDP. And Argentina has been struggling. That’s what these people are trying to do to Nigeria. And the Nigerian people must say no to this.
“What we are doing as civil society is to create options that prevent them from getting away with what they used to get away with.”
Utomi said civil society groups will set up an INEC-style independent IReV to check the government’s rigging efforts.
“We are setting up our own independent IReV and there will be more than one civil society organisation involved. Once the elections take place, the results will be photographed, uploaded, and reported on CNN, Al Jazeera, and everywhere in the world. INEC can continue to fool itself with its rules, but the Nigerian people have had enough.”
He added: “We are setting up election marshals and vote marshals that will man every polling station in this country. Enough is enough. A political class cannot keep people down.”
