Special Statement: “Axis Of Political Intolerance And Poll Rigging”: We May Be Forced To Internationally Block Nigeria’s Governors Alia, Soludo, Okpebholo, Mbah, Uzodimma And Nwaifuru From Traveling To Democratic Europe And Americas And Show Them The Way To Somalia And Afghanistan
-InterSociety
Enugu, Eastern Nigeria, Tuesday. Sept 15, 2026: Nigeria, having been left thousands of miles away by her socioeconomic and political peers of the 60s and the 70s including Countries of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Brazil, among others; is dangerously headed by her political, security and radical religious actors into the caves of the battered Republics of Somalia and Afghanistan enveloped by primitive Sultanates and endless clan warfare. It is therefore on these grounds that we at the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (InterSociety) have monitored Nigeria’s unfolding political events especially since the swearing-in in Oct 2025 of Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN; an Ijumu-born Professor of Law from Kogi State as Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Having been deeply worried over unfolding political events under his chairmanship especially the religiously motivated timed January 2027 Presidential Election and allied others, the following findings have been made and positions taken:
· NSCIA Versus INEC: Amupitan’s Legal Brief On Christian Genocide Controversy: The religiously motivated media attacks at the person and religious faith (for being a Christian) of the Chairman of INEC by the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and allied Islamic bodies was found to have marked a turning point and a major stumbling block against the capacity of the INEC Chairman to discharge his sworn duties credibly, independently and impartially in accordance with the multi-ethnic and multi-religious composition of Nigeria as enshrined in the country’s 1999 Constitution. There is no doubt that the sole aim of the attacks was to make the INEC helmsman a lame duck and a stooge ahead of the Jan 2027 Presidential Poll and allied others. It must be disclosed that it was InterSociety that exclusively disclosed to Sahara Reporters in November 2025 that Professor O. Amupitan, SAN, as a professor of law and Senior Advocate of Nigeria was the one that wrote: Legal Brief: “Genocide in Nigeria: Implications for the International Community-2020”.
The about 312-Page Legal Brief, prepared by the professor of law was found to have been written for “the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON) on its Report- “SILENT SLAUGTER: 2020” (genocidal attacks on Nigerian Christians and their churches). It must further be disclosed that the above followed organized attacks by Nigerian Government and its linked media outfits to de-market and discredit our various reports on ‘Genocide against Nigerian Christians, dating back to 2009. Also, the height of the attacks against us was false claims that “most of our reportorial references cannot be located” including our referencing of the Open Doors Report of 2015 per Ms Anna Mulder: “In Five Years of 2009-2014, Boko Haram destroyed 13, 500 churches and 1,500 Christian schools, killed 11,000-11, 500 Christians and forced 1.6m to flee to avoid being hacked to death for being Christians by Boko Haram and other Islamic jihadists”.
As a matter of fact, InterSociety was responding to BBC’s biased report, riddled with imported falsehoods including amplification of Nigerian Government false denials and cover-ups on raging Religious Genocide or egregious Persecution in Nigeria including mass killing of Christians and destruction of churches as well as tribo-religious and well-coordinated attacks against moderate Muslims. It was in the course of our media engagement with Sahara Reporters on that they came across our exclusive disclosure while going through our reference to Prof Joash Amupitan’s Legal Brief and resolved to publish it as a separate news; from where the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and allied others launched series of fierce personal and institutional attacks on the new INEC Chairman (as he then was), calling him names and asking him to resign.
Pre-Resignation Letter Allegedly Signed By Professor Joash Amupitan: INEC Chairman’s independence, integrity and credibility were also found to have suffered another major setback when former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof Chdi Amsalem Odinkalu made a weighty and serious allegation on his X handle, alleging that “INEC Chairman Amupitan’s appointment was contingent upon a pre-signed resignation letter by powerful interests”. According to Sahara Reporters of April 2, 2026, Prof Odinkalu was further quoted as having added: “I have it on the impeccable authority that there is a pre-signed resignation letter by Chairman Amupitan. It was a pre-condition for his appointment”.
Polling Units Living-Votes Results Unlikely In The Jan 2027 Presidential Poll: Our position, therefore, is that with the INEC Chairman having been so harassed and intimidated; and having allegedly been compelled to allegedly sign the alleged pre-signed resignation letter by powerful interests in the country’s corridors of power, possibly including leading Islamic bodies; the capacity of the INEC Chairman to conduct free, fair, credible and accountable Jan 2027 presidential poll and allied others based on polling units generated Living Results, is seriously in doubt. That is to say that there is likelihood of widespread repeat of the armada of institutional (in-house) rigging of the presidential poll, as was widely suspected to have been the case in 2023. Such are also likely to be extended to Governorship, National and State Assembly Polls. This is more so when not only that members of the opposition political parties and their candidates have turned blind eyes to these grave institutional lapses, challenges and intimidation of the INEC Chairman, but they are compounded by the radical shift of the presidential election timetable on the ground of religion, particularly at the suspected behest of the country’s Islamic leaders.
· Teething Lapses In INEC And Atiku And Peter Obi’s Populism And Crowd Cheering: Following our step-by-step monitoring of the country’s unfolding political events under the current INEC Chairman, it is our finding that leading opposition figures including Mr Peter Obi of NDC and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of ADC, their supporters and followers have continued to be carried away by populism, crowd cheering and sensational social and mainstream media publicity; thereby depriving them of time and opportunities to keep INEC and its Chairman in the record time constant and proper checks. They have generally failed in record time to compel INEC to correct widespread mistakes and anomalies inherent in the recent times ‘conducted general and staggered elections.
For instance, the Nigeria’s leading opposition figures and their parties have failed woefully to compel INEC, in view of the country’s teething territorial insecurity and other unsafe conditions brought about by forest and roadway-flooded Islamic jihadists, to publicly name the number of polling units and collation centres, out of the country’s 176, 846 voting centres and 8, 809 electoral wards where voting and result collation will take place or will not take place especially ahead of the Jan 2027 Presidential Poll; or how the Commission intend to conduct free, fair, credible and accountable presidential poll and others in the country’s 176,846 polling units throughout the country. Going by recent experiences in places like Imo, Ebonyi, Rivers, Borno, Zamfara, Benue, etc., especially in those areas devastated by Islamic insurgency and other widespread attacks; tainted electoral results have freely and easily been hatched and harvested in their polling units and electoral wards-using widely suspected cloned INEC’s FormEC8As and FormEC8Bs and other sensitive result tabulation materials.
The Opposition political figures in the country have also failed to act in record time to compel INEC to migrate to electronic voting, to be practiced and allowed side by side with manual or physical presence voting. It is also most likely correct to say that ahead of the 2027 Polls, there are so many things deliberately left undone by INEC, with the opposition political figures turning blind eyes on them or being too afraid, fearing possible victimization by INEC. Another typical example arising from our advocacy observation and finding is that the present management of the National Register of Voters by INEC is still nothing to write home about. Tens of millions of registered voters with PVCs are still being deliberately disenfranchised through several INEC’s disenfranchisement policies and conducts; to the extent that in most of the eleven States of South-East and South-South, millions of PVC holders are deliberately disenfranchised at polling units during elections. Even when they physically present their PVCs and their names digitally appear on voters’ register, they are still disenfranchised on the ground that their names did not appear on the print out copies of the Register designated for voting at their polling units. A typical case in point is our Leader, Emeka Umeagbalasi, who was disenfranchised on election day at his polling unit on the ground that his name was missing from the printout copies even when his name was found on digital copy of the Voters’ Register for the area. This was during the Nov 2025 staggered Anambra Governorship Poll.
The Nigeria’s opposition political parties and their leading figures including Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar have also turned blind eyes by failing woefully to compel INEC through public interest litigations, protests, media conferences, face-to-face engagements, etc.; to update the records of the recently registered voters. These INEC’s deliberate failures, silently amplified by the leading opposition figures named above had included: failure of INEC to print PVCs for the newly registered voters, failure to print new PVCs for PVC holders who moved from their previous locations to new locations through Voters’ Cards’ Transfers, failure to print new PVCs for those with defaced and lost PVCs, failure to clean up the Register to disconnect the dead ones and inactive others, failure to print and issue new PVCs to those previously registered but have not been issued with PVCs; and failure to address the issue of missing names from the Register especially those with PVCs whose names have been missing from the Register. It must commendably be noted that Omoyele Sowore and his African Action Congress have shown semblances of the watchdog role expected of opposition political party and advocacy in Nigeria.
A Case-Study Of Anambra INEC’s ICT And Its Secretariat: Using Anambra State as case study, the operational and ICT affairs of the Commission are at high risk of being seriously compromised, if not already compromised by some Federal and State Government political influences and interferences. From our facts gathered within and outside INEC establishments, the most sensitive and possibly most compromised department of INEC today is its ICT Department, followed by Departments of General Administration and Procurement (GAP) and Operations. This is to the extent that several of their heads have reportedly transformed themselves into ‘a digital poll rigging cabal’ and reportedly fallen under heavy political influences of some State and Federal political office forces especially in matters of transfers, postings and conducts. Several of them are also said to have become sit-tight in their duty posts, spending extra-statutory years in one duty post, under the protection and political influences of some sitting Governors and Federal and State lawmakers and senior political appointees.
Under the same Anambra State, INEC’s Head of Department of ICT is Emeka Nnaji, while those in charge of Departments of General Administration and Procurement and Operations are Akuma Egwuonwu Ankpa and Ejimofor Dike. Emeka Nnaji as Anambra INEC’s ICT head, until few weeks ago, has spent more than nine years in his posting in the State. Obtained records showed that he was in charge of ICT during the second tenure election of former Governor Willie Obiano in 2017 and was also in charge of Anambra INEC’s ICT during Governor Charles Soludo’s first and second term elections in 2021 and 2025. He was also in charge of Anambra INEC’s ICT during the 2019 and 2023 Presidential Polls and it was in the same Anambra State that he earned his Civil Service Grade Levels 14, 15 and 16, with some critics saying that: “the fear of Emeka Nnaji and his team in Anambra INEC’s ICT Department is the beginning of wisdom for key political contestants”. He was also alleged to have become so powerful in the INEC’s ICT Department forming “Five Fingers of ICT Wise Men”. Names of other members of his alleged cabal were given as “Leonard Okeke, Moses Aniehe, Mellitus Okeke and Chizoba Ogbe”. We also gathered that his recent grossly belated transfer to Ebonyi State is said to be generating controversies INEC and some powerful political forces in the State. While still in Anambra State until few weeks ago, most of the outstanding statutory duties on his table were said to have been stalled for several months including non-printing of new PVCs for the newly registered voters, those previously registered, those that did their transfers to new locations and those that lost their PVCs and have theirs defaced, etc.; leading to millions facing disenfranchisement and not likely to cast their votes in the Jan 2027 Presidential Poll and allied others. The ongoing INEC senior staffing transfers are also said to be heavily politically influenced.
· Political Intolerance Of Alia, Soludo, Okpebholo, Others Against Peter Obi: In Anambra State; and contrary to democratic and good governance principles, Prof Charles Soludo as tenured Governor of the State, with about three years and two months before next election into his office and three years and six months before the end of his final tenure; has collapsed the governance and machineries of the State into Tinubu’s presidential campaign instruments and attack machineries against Peter Obi, presidential flagbearer of Nigerian Democratic Congress. As a globally respected professor of economics and political player, he knows that the mandate given to him was to serve and govern the State well and transform it into global standard; bearing in mind transient of office power and extreme limitations of time.
Painfully, Anambra State under Governor Charles Soludo is presently left with only three governance items: “taxation governance”, impressive Government secondary school free education scheme and impressive public debt management records, but with zero State annual financial reports since March 2022. The rest including “Olu-atu-Egwu Road Network and Environmental and Flooding Management” are falling and wobbling. Professor Soludo must be reminded that voting right is so sacred that he has only one voting right and can never determine the voting rights and outcomes of more than 2.5m Anambra PVC holders found across the State’s 5,720 polling units and 329 wards and result collation centres. That is to say that not even by intimidating and threatening local government and township and community leaders and traditional institutions will this sanctity of the Ballot Box be reversed and militarized. A saying still goes that “Ballot Is Stronger Than Bullet”.
InterSociety has also received disturbing reports regarding office power abuses and recklessness by State political actors in Benue, Enugu, Edo, Ebonyi and Imo States, among others-where their respective State Governments have resorted to reckless abuse of office power, political rascality and intolerant to dissent voices and muzzling of Civic Space-by organizing direct and indirect attacks and other forms of violence against members of the opposition political parties and their leaders particularly those of the Nigerian Democratic Congress and their Presidential candidate, Peter Obi. Direct or indirect loyalists of Governors Peter Mbah of Enugu State, Rev Hyacinth Alia of Benue State, Francis Nwaifuru of Ebonyi (Nwa Ikuku Father Mbaka), Monday Okpobholo of Edo State and Hope Uzodimna of Imo State, in addition to Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State-have all been fingered in ongoing crude manifestation of office power abuse, political intolerance and rascality. In Benue State where former Catholic Priest, Reverend Hyacinth Alia holds sway as Governor since May 29, 2023, recent attack on NDC and its Presidential Candidate (Peter Obi) marked the second time he was being blocked from entering Benue State. Available records at our disposal disturbingly showed that under Rev Alia as Benue Governor since May 29, 2023, no fewer than 2,500 Benue Christians, mainly members of his Catholic Christian denomination have been slaughtered by Jihadist Muslim Fulani Militants; and generally, over 2m have been forced to flee and abandon their livelihoods and Christian faith; out of which over 700,000 are in IDP camps and 1.3m others wallowing in urban homelessness including squatting and homeless street residencies; including hundreds of thousands scattered in Eastern parts of the country. Hundreds of churches including over 30 Catholic parishes and outstations have been destroyed or sacked in Kastina-Ala Catholic Diocese alone; likewise, dozens, if not hundreds lost in Otukpo, Gboko and Makurdi Dioceses including those belonging to NKST churches destroyed or sacked. Hundreds of Christian villages and communities have also been uprooted and sacked. It is therefore saddening and shocking that the Government of Rev Hyacinth Alia has remained inactive and reluctant in the midst of these religious butcheries and destructions, yet Government linked deadly political thugs were recently mobilized against harmless and law-abiding campaigning political opposition led by Peter Obi and his NDC but failed woefully to prevent attacks and widespread massacre of defenceless Christian Catholics and others across the State. The family of our Leader, Emeka Umeagbalasi in the East had also in December 2025 heeded a distress call from one of the Catholic Priests in Katsina-Ala Diocese whose two young parishioners were nearly slaughtered by Jihadist Fulani Militants in Chenchanji, Taraba State where they ran for safety. The two were rescued and kept safe until recently when they moved and settled in Onitsha and Benin respectively.
Alia, Soludo, Okpebholo, Mbah, Uzodimma And Nwaifuru Risk Being Blocked From Traveling To Europe And Americas And Shown The Way To Somalia And Afghanistan: In view of further disturbing reports from Edo, Imo, Enugu, Imo and Ebonyi States including reported gun attacks by suspected Government-linked gunmen who opened fire on NDC members during their ward meeting in Enugu, injuring four; violent threats reportedly issued to local government and community leaders by the authorities of the Ebonyi State Government including alleged threats to oust them if APC does not sweep all the elective seats in the State; similar threats issued by the authorities of the Government of Anambra State and similar acts of abuse of office power, political intolerance and rascality in the States of Benue, Edo and Imo; InterSociety is strongly calling on those State authorities and others planning similar dastardly acts to stop and desist from overheating the polity, stifling the Civic Space and resorting to crude political exclusion. They are also strongly reminded that “Rights to political participation including rights to vote or be voted for are clearly provided as “Fundamental Human Rights” under Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution especially in Sections 38, 39, 40 and 41 (rights to Freedoms of thought, conscience, association, assembly and movement). It is not only that all forms of such abuse of office, political rascality and intolerance must be stopped and discontinued but also all political parties and their presidential candidates must be allowed unrestricted access to political campaign arenas in any part of Nigeria including Anambra, Benue, Edo, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, among others. They must also be protected by such State political actors and drafted security agencies. It is further reminded that all the Governors mentioned except Soludo of Anambra State and Hope Uzodimma of Imo State are also governorship candidates in their respective States in the 2027 General Elections.
We Will Force Them Out Of Europe & Americas And Into Somalia And Afghanistan, If…: If these Governors continued to portray themselves and their States as “enemies of ballot democracy and axis of electoral militancy and election rigging”, we will be forced to invoke our worldwide contacts, networks and partnerships to block them from making foreign trips to Europe and Americas; likewise private and diplomatic engagements. That is to so say that we have started compiling their names, with intent and readiness to submit them in all the 27 European Embassies and High Commissions and those of the Americas including the United States and Canada and other strategic quarters in their Home Governments. As “portrayed enemies of democracy and electoral process”, they are morally and diplomatically unfit to be allowed access into the soils of these established Democracies. As a matter of fact, we will be compelled to force them into traveling to battered Countries of Somalia and Afghanistan-the world hellfire countries and home to enemies of democracy, democratic free speeches, civic spaces, human rights and fundamental freedoms.
For: International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (InterSociety)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Criminologist and Graduate of Security Studies
Head of Intersociety Nigeria
Chidinma Evangeline Udegbunam, Barrister-at-Law
Head, Department of Campaign and Publicity, Intersociety Nigeria
Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Barrister-at-Law
Head, Department of Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Intersociety Nigeria
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