Nigerian professors and professionals in the US, including Prof. Chinua Achebe, have been gathering signatories to condemn last month’s general election.

According to Empowered Newswire reports, they are calling for fresh elections in a petition to be delivered to the National Assembly.

They are also calling for the dissolution of the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Part of the petition reads, “In the light of these very serious flaws in these elections, we urge the National Assembly, as presently constituted, and the national judiciary, as represented in the electoral tribunals, to work to set the stage for fresh elections to be conducted, under new leadership at INEC, in all places where elections did not hold or were not properly conducted. This is the least we can reasonably hope for.”

The petition, which is currently being circulated online in the US and Canada by emails, is entitled “Nigeria: Electoral fraud - a serious crime against the nation.”

Professors and professionals who have signed the petition with Achebe are Profs. Cyril Enwonwu, Isidore Okpewho, Emmanuel Obiechina, Mobolaji Aluko, Anthony Isama, Callistus Nwadike, Dr. Ndubuisi Achufusi, Prof. Augustine Duru, Dr. John C. Chuke, Prof. M.J.C. Echeruo, and Prof. Ernest Emenyonu.

The petition noted that the signatories were “concerned by the extensively documented lack of proper preparation by the Independent National Electoral Commission in its planning and execution of the various stages of the electoral process, as demanded by the 1999 Nigerian Constitution and the National Electoral Act of 2006.”

It added, “We are particularly worried by INEC‘s inability to preserve its integrity as an impartial umpire and its failure to respect the rulings of the courts to remedy some of the consequences of its partisan impositions on the electoral process.

“It is clear that the elections were not properly carried out. The “do-or-die” premise interjected into the election campaign and carried over to the elections proper vitiated the entire atmosphere.”