The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, shed light on the malfunction of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) servers during the 2023 presidential election.
Speaking at an event in Canada over the weekend, Obi attributed the failure to what he described as the “establishment of criminality.”
Obi emphasized the need for increased engagement with stakeholders to address the issues plaguing the electoral system. He pointed out that despite efforts to bring about change, resistance from entrenched interests was inevitable.
Drawing parallels with historical struggles for change in countries like India, South Africa, and the United States, Obi stressed the importance of persistence and patience in effecting meaningful transformation.
He said: “Where did we go wrong in the last election? We didn’t go wrong anywhere. We did the right things.
“But as I can always tell people: when you bring a change, you fight all those who live off the old order. They don’t go away; they gang up. And don’t think it’s a straight race to remove an establishment.
“It’s a long-distance journey anywhere in the world. Go and check anywhere, whether you are looking at what happened in India, with Mandela in South Africa, or America. No change has happened overnight, it takes time.
“I urge all of you, if you really want change, we have just begun. We just have to continue from where we are.
“Yes, there might be one or two things we will correct, those things we will correct. I assure you we are correcting them without naming them.It’s not going to be easy.
“The INEC server was the same as the establishment. The server would not work because it was the establishment that made it so it wouldn’t work. It’s ours to continue to say that it would work. But there was no glitch.
“Amazon came and said there was no glitch. Amazon glitch is noticed globally – it’s recorded globally. And at that period, we brought down an Amazon person who said this is the number of glitches we have had since inception.
“And there was none that it reported that day. We know it didn’t occur. It was the glitch of the establishment criminality that was in the system. And we must one day make it work,” he said.