The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Monday advised the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to resist alleged pressure from the presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC) and conduct free, fair and transparent elections next month.
It will be recalled that PDP has never hidden its lack of confidence in either or any of the security agencies that are constitutionally empowered to conduct and provide security for elections in the country.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja, the Director of Media and Publicity, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, said the entire nation was worried, saying that the palpable fear of every Nigerian was whether the INEC boss can conduct an election, which would be indeed free, fair, credible and transparent.
The PDP’s advice however has been described as mere amplification of a gang up strategy to discredit the process of achieving credible election in 2019 considering, it was further said, that the opposition has chosen attacks on INEC and all security agencies as incapable of delivering.
“The PDP has reviewed all the circumstances surrounding the activities of the INEC as presently constituted, and after a careful appraisal of comments by critical national and international stakeholders, we challenge INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to rise above the manifest compromises and conduct the 2019 general election in a transparent manner,” the PDP’s spokesman said.
He said the party already has information that “the geo-spatial centres created by the INEC Chairman in the six geo-political zones have also been dubiously duplicated by Mrs. Amina Zakari in all the zones, from where APC and Buhari presidency intends to assemble fictitious votes and transmit same to INEC’s data base and situation room.”
Ologbondiyan alleged that Yakubu is being compromised by the APC and the presidency to rig the next month elections.
He added that this scenario was also feared to be the reason INEC was succumbing to pressure by the presidency to retain Mrs. Amina Zakari, the president’s relation, as head of the collation centre, where she was being positioned to alter genuine results and allocate fictitious figures in favour of Buhari.
According to Ologbondiyan, “We are also aware that the processes of employing Ad-hoc staff that will function as electoral officers, particularly in the presidential election have already been compromised to favour the APC under Mahmood Yakubu’s watch to manipulate the process.”
He stated that presently, more than half of the card readers to be used in the elections have been rendered obsolete and non-functional, less than 25 days to the elections, noting that card readers have not been upgraded.
“We have it on good authority that these will be used to create confusion on election days and facilitate the use of incident form, which will hamper transparency,” Ologbondiyan added.
The PDP, therefore, called on INEC chairman to demonstrate his credibility and ability to conduct free, fair and transparent elections by taking urgent and decisive steps to show that he has not been compromised by the APC and the presidency.
In the meantime, Nigerians who commented on the PDP’s allegations have dismissed the PDP’s “unfounded worry” as just a demonstration of frustration by people who know by their past they can no longer have the consent of electorate to rule the country.
PDP tells INEC to resist “APC’s plan to rig” election, PDP tells INEC
