25th November, 2013
Abiodun Onafuye/ Abeokuta
As controversy continues to dog the 16 November governorship election in the eastern Nigerian state of Anambra, the spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) said the current leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has no moral right to conduct any election again in the country.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Acting Publicity Secretary of the party said the Attahiru Jega team has ridiculed the country among the comity of nations.
Mohammed stated this today in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital while speaking with newsmen after he gave a lecture to commemorate the Press Week of the Freelance and Independent Broadcasters Association of Nigeria, FIBAN, Ogun State chapter. The lecture was held at the Iwe Irohin Press House, Oke Ilewo, Abeokuta.
He said the APC and some other opposition political parties have threatened to boycott the supplementary Anambra election on Saturday because, “the November 16 election was tainted with such irredeemable irregularities that the so-called supplementary election cannot cure. We have been able to give evidence to INEC that unless fresh elections are conducted everywhere, the approach of INEC to those supplementary election would be an exercise in futility”.
Mohammed listed several reasons Professor Attahiru Jega cannot be trusted again to conduct any election in any
part of this country.
The first reason he said was the INEC Chairman’s admittance publicly that a senior official of the commission was induced with money to compromise the election in Idemili North local government. The fact that the INEC chairman can admit that his official took money to compromise the election; I think it is enough basis for cancellation because we do not even know how far that conspiracy has gone. Is it only in Idemili North or other local governments”?
“For people who think it is one local government, that local government has 173, 000 registered voters and that local government happens to be the strong-hold of the APC candidate. For anyone who is reasonable, I think that is enough
ground to cancel that election”.
“secondly, in the run-up to the election, the APC candidate, Dr. Chris Ngige, wrote a petition, a complaint to INEC against a particular electoral commissioner saying that this Electoral Commissioner, has exhibited bias and animosity against him as a person when he was contesting for senatorial post and he documented the extent of
the bias of this particular Commissioner, in that he gave two House of Assembly seats to APGA.
“When we complained and went to court, the court upheld our complaints and there was a re-run. Today, we occupy those seats. So the fact that one of the candidates actually complained of bias and animosity was enough reason for that commissioner not to be allowed to preside over the elections in Anambra state.
“Third, INEC regulations require ad-hoc staff as presiding officers and supervising presiding officers and INEC’s regulations say you do not allow students to do these jobs. November 16th, students of UNIZIK were given NYSC uniform as presiding officers. That was not even bad enough; staffs of the university were also SPO’s, even though, the running mate to the APGA candidate was a Professor of Engineering in that university until few weeks before the election.
According to him, “Nigeria has a problem because INEC as we have today has no integrity to conduct any further election in Nigeria, not even in 2014. If INEC chairman can admit that somebody tried to compromise the register in Idemili North, then how are we sure any register anywhere is save. If they can compromise election in Idemili North, so they can do also in Ekiti or Ondo”
“We did complain also that registers that were used for the election were different from registers that were given to political parties. What happened was that political parties were given registers about six weeks before the election. On Wednesday the 13th when they held a stakeholders meeting, Professor Attahiru Jega told them that the
registers with them have to be updated and gave them new diskettes. But when they downloaded the diskette, they found out that the names of many of their supporters were not there”,he submitted.
Mohammed insisted that anomalies observed that day were enough evidence to cancel the election as the umpire was biased.
“For us in APC, the matter is very clear. Anambra election is not about APC versus PDP or APGA, it is about APC versus the Presidency. Otherwise, how do we explain that PDP, whose candidate was not allowed to vote in that election, will rush to the press and say that the election is free and fair? How do we justify it? In other words, from the beginning for PDP, it was not about wining. They know they could not win. It was about making sure that APC doesn’t win.
He faulted the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC for saying, it lacks power to cancel election, warning that, if we fail to get it right now, things may get worsen in the forthcoming elections, especially, that of Osun and Ekiti States.
“Jega would want us to believe that INEC has no power to cancel elections. Didn’t they cancel the one we were supposed to re-do on Saturday? This Anambra election is a very important election. It is not just about who is going to be governor of Anambra state, as a matter of fact, we are not really worried about who is going to win but we were very concerned about rule of law. We were concerned that every Nigerian, who is eligible to vote, must cast his vote because Anambra election is a dry-run to Ekiti, Osun and 2015. So if we don’t get it right now, it portends
trouble for Nigeria”, APC spokesman said.