Civil rights groups in Nigeria have called on the international community to impose visa bans and other travel restrictions on four serving governors and 54 officials of the country's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The groups, including the International College for Rights and Democracy and the Eastern Democracy and Rights Coalition, accuse the governors and officials of compromising the presidential and national assembly elections that took place on February 25. The groups have also called for the resignation of the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, and the head of the commission's information and communication technology department, alleging their complicity in electoral fraud.
The civil rights groups have expressed their disappointment in INEC, accusing the body of manipulating the polls in favour of certain candidates. They claim that the polls were marred by irregularities, with results that were posted on the commission's servers and IReV portals differing significantly from those that were announced. The groups allege that the manipulation was carried out with the knowledge and complicity of the INEC officials.
The groups have further expressed outrage over the killing of innocent Nigerians by herdsmen following the presidential poll. They claim that the killings were carried out by jihadists, who are foot-soldiers of the propagators of Nigeria's state jihadism and radical Islamism, to celebrate the emergence of a rigged "Muslim-Muslim presidency" by INEC. The civil rights groups say that more than 100 Christians have been killed in the violence that followed the polls. They have called for the perpetrators of the violence to be brought to justice and for the international community to act against those responsible.
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