The Northern Ethnic Youth Group Assembly, NEYGA, has condemned Friday’s protest against the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Joash Amupitan, outside Chatham House in London, describing it as a staged affair mounted by “a small rented crowd” working for politicians and contractors determined to sabotage the 2027 general elections.
In a statement issued in Kaduna on Friday by its spokesperson, Mallam Ibrahim Dan-Musa, the group alleged that the handful of demonstrators were bankrolled by aggrieved politicians and suppliers of electoral materials who seek to preserve their grip on INEC contracts.
NEYGA claimed the calls for the INEC chairman’s resignation were a “calculated distraction” by individuals who, according to the group, fear that an impending court judgment would damage their political ambitions.
Citing what it described as “credible intelligence sources,” the group alleged that the London demonstration was heavily funded and populated largely by non-Nigerians — including nationals of Zimbabwe and South Africa — hired to create the impression of widespread diaspora anger against the Commission.
“It is both ironic and curious that these same rented voices maintained a deafening silence when Nigerians and other Africans were being killed and their properties destroyed during the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa,” the statement read.
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NEYGA said the activists failed to take those cases to the international community, adding that they had instead “allowed themselves to be weaponized against Nigeria’s democratic process.”
Register cleanup ongoing, group insists
On the grievances cited by the protesters — notably complaints over suspected AI-generated photographs in the preliminary voters’ register — NEYGA said such concerns had already been raised domestically and were being actively addressed by the Commission.
It argued that INEC had shown transparency by issuing daily updates on its preparations, and that more than 1.6 million invalid voter registrations had already been deleted in an ongoing cleanup ahead of the final certification of the register.
Threat to expose contractors
The group further claimed it had uncovered the identities of contractors financing the foreign protests and was compiling their names for a formal petition to security and anti-corruption agencies.
“To those INEC contractors: you cannot hold the Commission hostage. Colluding with desperate politicians to sabotage Nigeria’s democratic processes is not merely a crime — it is a grave felony, and your activities are being closely monitored,” the statement warned, promising to “expose and publicly shame” those involved “in due course.”
NEYGA urged Nigerians across all divides to rally behind Prof. Amupitan, insisting the INEC chairman had done nothing to warrant questions about his capacity. It also welcomed the ongoing early distribution of non-sensitive electoral materials from the national headquarters to the states, describing the exercise as unprecedented.
“We call on the INEC Chairman not to be deterred by paid blackmailers. He must remain focused on his mandate to deliver free, fair, and credible elections to the Nigerian people,” the group declared.
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