An old video featuring Dr. Lloyd Ukwu, Executive Director of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), USA, who described the 2023 general elections in Nigeria as a “crime watch,” has resurfaced online.
This comes after Catholic bishops recently visited President Bola Tinubu to voice concerns over insecurity, economic hardship, and the integrity of the electoral process.
Speaking during an international press conference at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Ukwu disclosed that “What happened in Nigeria was not election observation but a crime watch. We watched a crime being perpetrated on a country of 200 million people with utter and complete impunity.”
While addressing the observer reports and controversies around the presidential elections, the Director of NADECO USA asserted that the 2023 general elections were tainted by mischief and the failure to upload the presidential results.
“The results were not uploaded now just to show you the extent of the mischief that occurred. The results for the National Assembly elections, which occurred at the same time, simultaneously, with the presidential results, were uploaded but the presidential election results were not uploaded.
“And till this day, as we speak, the results have not even been completely uploaded,” he claimed.
Ukwu also lamented that “What is even shocking is that we have seen as photographs of individuals a woman in a bathroom, uploaded supposedly as results on IREV.”
The lawyer also queried, “How can you elect someone on the basis of the photograph of a woman in the bathroom?”
He regretted that many prominent international observers condemned this abnormality.
“A lot of the international observers who were there were as disenchanted as I was. There were four African presidents, including a former president, who were in Nigeria to observe the elections.
“There were over 144,000 observers deployed across the country, and they were all disenchanted by what they saw,” he alleged.
He mentioned that a former US president criticized the extent of electoral malpractice in Nigeria.
“I also want to say that President Jimmy Carter has been vindicated. He went and observed elections in Nigeria many years ago.
“He was so upset at the impunity and the brazen theft of the election that he vowed never to go back to Nigeria again. As that distinguished President is in hospice care, he stands vindicated because Nigeria has refused to learn from this,” Ukwu alleged.
Meanwhile, in a statement signed by Special Adviser Mr. Dele Alake, the then Nigerian President-Elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu criticized U.S.-based Lloyd Ukwu for falsely claiming to be the Executive Director of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) and for denouncing the February 25, 2023, Presidential Election.
In part, the statement read, “To hide under the name of NADECO to deceive the international media and interest groups is an act that should be condemned by right thinking people.”
NADECO was founded on May 15, 1994, by a broad coalition of Nigerian democrats who urged the military government of Sani Abacha to step down in favor of M. K. O. Abiola, the winner of the June 12, 1993 election.
Most members, including President Bola Tinubu, one of the leading figures of NADECO, came from various pro-democracy and activist groups, especially in Lagos and the southwest and quickly became a strong symbol of mass resistance against military rule.
