24th November, 2013
The All Progressives Congress (APC) is not relenting in driving home the message to the Independent National Electoral Commission, why only an annulment of the 16 November election in the eastern Nigerian state of Anambra, remains its only option to restore its integrity as an umpire.
The INEC has announced a rescheduled supplementary election for 30 November, in areas, the commission said elections were cancelled because of administrative lapses. The commission’s chairman,Attahiru Jega said Friday that commission had gotten no substantial evidence to warrant cancelling the entire election.
But the APC responded this morning saying “there is enough weighty, compelling and substantial evidence for
INEC to cancel the Nov. 16th governorship election in Anambra, rather than order the conduct of ‘supplementary
election’ for what is nothing but an irredeemable poll.”
”Our party has provided incontrovertible and more than substantial evidence to show that what took place on Nov.
16th is a parody of election the party said in a statement issued in Lagos on
Sunday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
”What other evidence can be more substantial than the fact that INEC, in conducting the Nov. 16th election, failed to
comply with the provisions of the Electoral Act? What other evidence can be more compelling than the INEC Chairman’s
admission of compromise by a top official of the commission? If Jega’s statement that the election fell short of what the commission had expected and prepared for, what else could be more substantial?” it queried.
APC said that, for the umpteenth time and so that Nigerians can understand the absurdity of Jega’s contradictory stance on the ill-fated election, the party has decided to list its reasons for demanding the cancellation of the caricature election.
– Prof Jega’s unforced admission that a senior official of the Commission has been financially induced to compromise the election in the Idemili North Local Government Area which has over 173,000 registered voters. This is very serious because this Local Government is the stronghold of the APC candidate, Senator Chris Ngige, and the fact that in the 2011 Senatorial Election Senator, Ngige scored over 80% of all votes cast in the Local Government.
– The decision to use the students of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, in direct violation of INEC guidelines, as Presiding Officers for the election instead of the trained ad hoc staff; and the use of the Staff of the university as Supervising Presiding Officers even though the running mate of the APGA candidate was until his nomination a professor in the same institution.
– The fact that electoral materials meant for the known strongholds of the APC candidate were deliberately sent to wrong wards or polling units, thereby creating confusion and frustration. By the time the materials were re-directed to the correct areas (if at all), many voters had left in frustration.
– Voters’ registers, especially in known APC strongholds, were tampered with to remove the names of many registered voters, thereby disenfranchising them
– Result sheets were not supplied in many polling booths, especially in known strongholds of the APC
– Collation of results was not done at polling booth units or wards.
– Only 4,604 agent tags were given to the APC despite the fact that the party sent to INEC the names and pictures of over 6,500 agents, after INEC created an additional 1,903 voting points. The 4,604 agent tags were delivered to APC only at 3pm on Friday the 15th of November 2013, in contrast to APGA that received over 6,500 agent tags from INEC at least 3 days before election.
– Senator Chris Ngige, the APC candidate, complained in writing to INEC that Prof. Chukwuemeka Onukogu should not be allowed to conduct the November 16th election given his bias and animosity towards him (Ngige). The same Onukogu was the Resident Electoral Commission during the 2011 Anambra Election, during which his bias and animosity showed through when it took the courts to reclaim two house of assembly seats that he (Onukogu) unlawfully took away from the defunct ACN on which platform Ngige contested and subsequently won the election as a Senator.
The party said if the reasons listed above were not considered substantial enough, then one is left with no choice but to conclude that either Prof. Jega is decidedly being naive about the extent and scope of the multi-layer rigging perpetrated under his nose on Nov. 16th or he has chosen to align with election marauders who are acting the larger script of the presidency/PDP.
”Either way, the buck stops on Prof. Jega’s desk and he bears the ultimate responsibility for the failure of the Nov. 16th election. Therefore, he must summon the courage to ameliorate the situation by ordering a fresh election. Failure to do that will mean that he has simply abdicated his responsibility and ruined the people’s confidence in the ability of the commission he heads to remain an unbiased umpire,” it said.
In spite of the brazen manner in which voters in Anambra State have been robbed of their franchise and the increasingly-apparent colluding stance of INEC, APC appealed to its supporters to remain calm and law abiding, as the leadership of the party will explore all constitutional and legal avenues to ensure that justice is done in this matter.