On Monday, the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC said it had pulled back 25 return certificates issued to some candidates who were previously announced as winners of the 2019 general election.

It said that the withdrawals were made on orders from the court.

Mr Festus Okoye, administrator of the Committee on Information and Voter Education, uncovered this on the occasion,“forum on Media Coverage of 2019 General Elections,” that took place in Enugu.

Okoye said that 20 of the 25 return certificates were withdrawn from All Progressive Congress candidates and reissued to different APC party individuals.While two certificates were withdrawn from the People’s Democratic Party competitors and were reissued to other PDP candidates.

He said the remaining three endorsements had been withdrawn from both the APC and the PDP candidates and issued to other party individuals.

“Before we left INEC national headquarters on Friday; the commission had withdrawn 25 certificates of return from the first owners and presented to their new owners, following court orders to do that,” he said.

Okoye praised the journalists for their transparency and powerful commitment with the commission, amid and after the elections.

He included that for the success of future elections, the media had proved to be fundamental partners.

He portrayed the media as the masses ‘ main line of reach  to help clarify the political and electoral decisions of INEC.

The President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Mr Chris Isigozu, said the media had appreciated hearty discussions with INEC  during and after the elections.

Isigozu praised the commission for performing respectably well, given the assets and length of collaboration with different partners associated with the electoral process.

Comrade Timi Frank, former assistant National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressive Congress (APC), applauded a press release by a U.S based agency – the Digital Forensic Research Laboratory of the Atlantic Council.

The US firm had revealed ‘Archimedes’, a political consultant firm in Isreal role in spreading fake news through the social media about PDP Presidential Candidate – Atiku Abubakar.

Facebook expelled Archimedes from the network on Thursday due to its “coordinated and deceptive behavior”. The popular network also removed dozens of accounts and thousands of facebook pages that are created to disrupt elections in Countries in Africa, with a few sparse exercise in East asia and South America.

In response to the ban, Mr Frank, through a comment on Saturday,  said the world would eventually realize all the lies behind Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s proclamation as the victor during the last election.

One of pages removed by Facebook on Thursday, as revealed by Frank, was loaded with viral false news and targeted attacks on Abubakar, Nigeria’s former vice president.

According to Timi Frank, the report reads:

“that on the overall, the misleading accounts had reached some 2.8 million users, and the pages had engaged over 5,000 followers, according to Facebook’s estimates.”

After praising Facebook, He went on further to say:

“Nigerians ought to be worried about how the APC-led government is spending huge amount of money just to discredit the rightful winner of the 2019 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar.

“I believe that if a lie goes on for 20 years, truth will definitely catchup with it one day. It will not be long before Nigerians will realise how desperate and fake President Muhammadu Buhari is in his bid to hang onto power.”

The political nationalist called on the rest of the world to acknowledge the press release of the Associated Press as well as the resulting damage accomplished in the last election to Nigeria’s second largest party and its presidential nominee.

He said:

“The AP’s report has clearly shown the level of lies sponsored against Atiku during and after the last general election. The campaign of calumny has not stopped but Nigerians should henceforth disregard malicious reports in the social media against the former VP,”