Yesterday, the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) started a coordinated campaign against the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) nad its chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega.
First, there was that story of a plot to
replace Jega by sending him on a terminal leave. No government official
has denied that story, even though we don’t know where it emanated
from.
However, there was a concerted attack on
the integrity of INEC, from newspaper ads, which questioned Jega’s
credibility and mentioned the fact that he is a Northerner. In 2011 when
Jega conducted the election which saw Pres. Goodluck Jonathan defeat
his two main Northern rivals, Jega’s region did not seem to matter much.
In the midst of all that, the Director
General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Ahmadu Ali,
alongside the spokesman of the campaign, Femi Fani-Kayode, on Monday
criticised INEC for the postponed elections, saying that the commission
is not ready for the poll.
At the press conference where INEC was bashed, Ali also protested against the use of card readers for the election by INEC.
He said, “There are also reports that
the PVC readers are not fully distributed and tested. How can INEC
handle cases of faulty card readers? Do they have a credible plan B in
situation where voters line up and the card readers refuse to work?
Ballot boxes are reportedly inadequate. Adequate training of INEC’s
members of staff for the election had not been concluded and other
problems facing INEC.
“Quite clearly the shift in election
date is meant to save INEC from monumental embarrassment. I would like
to reiterate that the PDP is ready for the election any day.”
In a different press conference, the deputy national chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, also lambasted INEC.
Here’s what he said:
“The truth is that INEC was not ready
for the elections and lacks the ability and strength to say so. How can
INEC say that the basic reason for the shift of the elections was the
security crisis in the Northeast states of Borno, Adamawa, Yobe and
Borno without telling Nigerians the challenges it is facing in the
distribution of the Permanent Voter Cards.
“Let INEC tell Nigerians the details of
the report submitted to it by the two United States Democracy
Institutes. I mean the reports from the National Democratic Institute
(NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI).
“INEC is keeping quite on the report
that was submitted to it as far back as January 20 or thereabout. If
INEC is not for mischief, let the commission tell the world its level of
preparedness in terms of training of more than 900,000 ad-hoc staff and
the distribution of all sensitive materials.
“How can INEC claim to be ready for the
elections when in some states, about 50 percent of the voters are yet to
have collected the voter cards. In Lagos state with the highest number
of voters, more than 33 percent are yet to collect their PVCs. Yet INEC
says it is ready to conduct the elections.
Is INEC out to
disenfranchise eligible voters and then find another way to discredit
the entire electoral system.
“What of the Card Reading Machines, has
INEC text run these machines, is all the PVCs for the elections in the
country. We have it on good authority that the PVCs for five or four
states are not yet distributed, let alone collected by the eligible
voters. INEC should be honest enough to tell Nigerians the truth than
hiding under security reports.”
Meanwhile, the Society for Advancement
and Protection of Public Rights, has filed a suit against INEC seeking
to restrain the commission from using the PVC and card readers for the
forthcoming polls on the grounds that they were likely to lead to the
disenfranchisement of eligible voters.
It argued that since INEC had not
engaged in trial application of the PVC and card readers, they could not
guarantee their effectiveness.
The group therefore wants the court to,
among others, direct INEC to revert to the use of Temporary Voter Cards,
which had been tested during previous elections.
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