JUST IN: Rights Group Writes Open Letter To Independent National Electoral Commission Over Delayed Implementation Of Warri Federal Constituency Delineation Report -

By Ebiowei Gabriel

PROFESSOR, JOASH OJO AMUPITAN, SAN
DATE: 3/1/2026

This letter is written in raw anger and deliberate clarity. It is written because silence has gone on too long and restraint has been mistaken for ignorance. What your office is doing in Warri Federal Constituency is no longer delay; it is obstruction. It is no longer caution; it is complicity. It is no longer neutrality; it is collaboration with falsehood.

Your officials completed the fieldwork. They walked the terrain. They visited the communities. They saw the settlements. They documented the numbers. You know the demographic reality. You know who is majority. You know who has been cheated for decades. Yet, after facts were verified and truth was established, you chose to bury the result. That choice is yours and history will attach your name to it.

In electoral governance, when verification is concluded and results are withheld, the act becomes fraud by omission. An umpire who sees the foul and hides the whistle has already taken sides. By this continued delay, INEC is no longer behaving like an unbiased electoral umpire. By conduct, not words, the Commission has positioned itself as a biased actor, selectively protecting one narrative while suppressing another. This is how institutions lose credibility, when their actions openly contradict their mandate.

Let us be blunt: the refusal to announce the final ward delineation result objectively benefits the Itsekiri position and injures constitutional justice. Whether by pressure, fear or convenience, INEC’s silence now amounts to collaboration with Itsekiri falsehood and demographic manipulation. History is not confused. Records are clear that Prince Ginuwa arrived as a banished man and survived through Ijaw assistance. Hospitality does not transform into ownership. Tenancy does not mature into sovereignty. Population does not bow to propaganda. Numbers do not lie, no matter how powerful those offended by them may be.

As a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, you understand the legal implications of this delay more than most Nigerians. You know that suppressing a concluded delineation offends constitutional representation, poisons the legitimacy of voter registration and renders any downstream electoral process legally vulnerable. You know that continued withholding after verification exposes the Commission to accusations of bad faith, ethnic bias and abuse of discretion. Stop protecting falsehood. Stop hiding behind silence when the law demands action.

You know the figures. You have seen the spread. You understand the arithmetic. The Ijaw population in Warri Federal Constituency is broader, deeper and more continuous. This is not social media noise; it is measurable reality. And this is precisely why the result is being suppressed, because the truth dismantles a carefully sustained lie.

Do not mistake the people’s restraint for stupidity. We understand law. We understand history. We understand when an institution stalls because courage has failed it. 2023 will never repeat itself. Not in Warri. Not again. Silence will no longer be mistaken for consent.

As long as the final ward delineation result is withheld, no voter registration exercise has legitimacy, no electoral activity commands public trust and no preparation for 2027 can stand on moral ground. Democracy cannot be built on concealed truth. A process founded on distortion will collapse under its own weight.

You were entrusted with an institution meant to defend democracy, not to act as a shield for ethnic revisionism or elite intimidation. Every extra day of silence deepens INEC’s loss of moral authority. Every further delay reinforces the perception of bias. Every attempt to bury truth only ensures that when it resurfaces, it will do so with consequences.

This is not a plea. It is not a negotiation. It is a final demand grounded in law, history and the will of the people:

ANNOUNCE THE FINAL WARD DELINEATION RESULT NOW.

History is watching.
The people are watching.
And silence will no longer protect you.

Signed:

Chief Tiemopere Joshua
(President)

Chief Ebikeke T. Goodstime
(Secretary

Concerned Elders of Warri Federal Constituency

Cc:
The President, Federal Republic of Nigeria;
The National Security Adviser;
The Attorney General of the Federation;
The Nigerian Public;
National and International Media.