By Samuel Ogidan
Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has threatened to pass a vote of no-confidence on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) if it does not come out clean on the certificate of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd).
It would be recalled that Buhari had on Tuesday disclosed that INEC was in possession of his documents.
But reacting to this, the PDP said if Buhari’s assertion was true, “the question is what INEC is now up to; collecting new documents from him through the back door, 40 days after the requirement of law.”
Addressing journalists yesterday in Abuja, the Director of Media and Publicity of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, said this was another attempt by Buhari to give Nigerians the impression that INEC had his certificate.
Fani-Kayode said: “With the latest antics, General Buhari is obviously trying to smuggle a newly acquired certificate into INEC through the back door. If this is true and if INEC allows such a thing to happen, it would put a serious question mark on its impartiality and credibility. It would mean that it has collected his newly acquired certificate, 40 days outside the stipulation of the law.”
“Section 31(3) of the Electoral Act says INEC “’shall within seven days of the receipt of the receipt of the personal particulars of the candidate, publish same in the constituency.’”
He maintained that Buhari was the only candidate whose documents were not published like other presidential candidates as stipulated by law, having not attached any certificate previously.
According to Fani-Kayode, “The electoral body must come clean on this matter; otherwise we will be compelled to pass a no-confidence vote on it.
“If INEC is complicit in the desperate and despicable attempt to extricate General Buhari, without compliance with the provisions of the law, from this lingering embarrassment, we will have no other choice than to harbour the suspicion and fear that the electoral body is already compromised and can lend itself to the ungodly agenda of truncating our victory when our candidate wins.”
