Popular human rights lawyer, Femi Falana SAN has said that the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections shattered many myths about Nigerian politics.
He said that despite many irregularities witnessed during the polls, there were some noticeable positives, including the destruction of the myth of ‘political structure’.
Falana, who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said this as a guest on a Channels Television’s programme on Monday.
“There are some positive developments that were recorded.
“For instance, the myth of these political structures has been destroyed whereby people have shown that we are the structure, and the people are the structure ultimately.
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“Secondly, young people have also shown this time around that we are going to determine the future of our country.
“Thirdly, you no longer have to be a moneybag to contest elections in Nigeria.
“Another development is that whereas the Senate chamber has been converted to a resting home for former governors; this time around, many of the governors lost their seats, they lost in the election and so they won’t be able to go back to the National Assembly.
“The other development is that sitting governors and sitting president could not win their states for their political parties.
“So, in spite of the challenges, a number of positive developments have been recorded by our country and, of course, I think the most significant is the use of BVAS for accreditation.
“It has improved the accreditation of voters,” Falana said.
Falana expressed regret that the Indepedent National Electoral Commission (INEC) failed to upload results electronically to their central result-viewing portal, IReV, in real-time as they promised ahead of the elections.
He urged the electoral umpire to remedy this before the March 18 governorship and House of Assembly elections.
The senior lawyer said that having postponed the election by one week, INEC would have no justifiable excuse not to upload the results electronically as promised.
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