The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday said “the confession by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that its card readers
were being circumvented, confirmed its position that the Kogi and Bayelsa
governorship elections, as well as the Kogi West Senatorial election,
were all manipulated and therefore fraudulent.”
The party said the confession on Wednesday by two INEC commissioners, Festus Okoye and Haruna Mohammed, that the card readers were
circumvented in elections conducted by the commission did not come to it
as a surprise.
INEC on Wednesday admitted that the smart card reader has lost its efficacy and vibrancy in relation to the electoral process.
The organisation stated that the SCR had become a redundant and inconsequential instrument, which posed challenges to electoral process in Nigeria.
INEC National Commissioner and chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, spoke in Abuja during a review meeting of the governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states.
The event was organised by the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room with support from the British Department for International Development.
Countering INEC’S claim on Thursday, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP national publicity secretary, said: “The confession by the commission vindicates the position of the PDP and majority of Nigerians that there were manipulations, alterations and circumventing of genuine data captured by the card readers and that actual results transmitted from polling units were tampered with.”
The opposition party said the admission has not only vindicated it but also brought to light why INEC had no convincing defence at the tribunal in the face of overwhelming discrepancies in the figures it declared in the presidential poll, as well as placed a huge burden on INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
“t is indeed unfortunate that INEC can suddenly claim that it has just
realized that the card readers have lost steam in our electoral process
after they have been used to manipulate voting processes.
“Prof. Yakubu is now faced with the burden of how our electoral system
has been corrupted by the manipulations in his INEC, all in the bid to
serve group, rather than national interest.
“The INEC Chairman should accept his failures and vacate office without
further delay. This is because there is no way Nigerians can continue to
repose confidence in the commission under his watch.
“Of course, not under an electoral commission that condones the invasion
of polling units, suppression of voters and stuffing of snatched ballot
boxes; an INEC that cancels results in places where election held
peacefully while announcing fabricated results allocated to its favored
political party as valid votes.
“The PDP totally rejects attempts by INEC to shift the blames for its
failures to other political parties. It is on record that our party had
consistently pointed to infractions created and allowed by INEC to
facilitate rigging in elections.”
While calling on Nigerians to remain calm, the PDP charged Prof. Yakubu
and the INEC leadership under him to do the needful by vacating offices
to save the country’s electoral system from complete collapse.
