…allegation baseless, untrue – INEC
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has alarmed the nation that the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu has been allegedly bribed by the All Progressives Congress (APC), to rig the 2019 general elections in favor of its candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari.
However, INEC has denied the allegation and described it has baseless, and unsubstantiated allegations.
The National Publicity Secretary of PDP and its Presidential Campaign Organization’ s Director media and Publicity, Kola Ologbondiyan at a press briefing in Abuja yesterday revealed that, “after reviewed all the circumstances surrounding the activities of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as presently constituted, and after a careful appraisal of comments by critical national and international stakeholders, we challenge INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to rise above the manifest compromises and conduct the 2019 general elections in a transparent manner”
Ologbondiyan who expressed concern on the capability of INEC Chairman to conduct free, fair, credible and transparent elections explained that, “this is particularly as allegations are rife in the public space, that the INEC Chairman is being compromised by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Buhari Presidency with offers of huge sums of money, choice property within and outside Nigeria, as well as juicy appointments to his relations as bribes, in return for the rigging of the elections in favour of President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC”
Therefore, Ologbondiyan urged Prof. Yakubu to resist any such pressure, “this is especially as many Nigerians fear that this is the reason behind the compromising insistence by INEC to lump together the accreditation of voters and voting, a situation that will muddle up the process and pave the way for participation of aliens, underage and unregistered voters and allocate fictitious figures in favour of President Buhari and the APC”
“This scenario is also feared to be the reason INEC is succumbing to pressure by the Buhari Presidency to retain Mrs. Amina Zakari, President Buhari’s relation by marriage, as head of the collation center, where she is being positioned to alter genuine results and allocate fictitious figures in favour of President Buhari, he added.
Ologbondiyan also alleged that, “the geospatial centers created by the INEC Chairman in the six geo-political zones have also been dubiously duplicated by Mrs. Amina Zakari in all the zones from where APC and Buhari Presidency intend to assemble fictitious votes and transmit same to INEC’s data base and situation room”
He revealed that, “we are also aware that the process of employing Ad-hoc staff that will function as electoral officers, particularly in the Presidential election have already been compromised to favour the APC under Mahmood Yakubu’s watch to manipulate the process”
According to Ologbondiyan, “more than half of the card readers to be used in the elections have been rendered obsolete and non-functional. We have less that 30 days to the elections and these card readers have not been upgraded. We have it on good authority that these will be used to create confusion on election days and facilitate the use of incident form, which will hamper transparency”
Ologbondiyan demanded that Prof. Mahmood Yakubu should “immediately rejig the electoral guidelines in a way that accreditation must be first concluded, number of accredited voters ascertained and openly announced before actual voting. Anything short of this will only validate the position of Nigerians that INEC has been compromised by the APC”
He again challenged Prof. Yakubu to “without further delay remove Amina Zakari from this sensitive position, if he indeed intends to conduct a credible collation of Presidential results.
The PDP Presidential Campaign Organization Director Media and Publicity, said “to hedge any infraction from the dubious duplication of the geo-spatial centers by Amina Zakari, the PDP insists that INEC’s final collation center must be made open to agents of all the Presidential candidates as well as representatives of national and international observers”
However, when contacted, Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi said “like all other baseless and unsubstantiated allegations leveled by the spokesman of PDP against the INEC Chairman in the recent past, this new set of allegations is following the same route.
“Please ask him, where is the concrete evidence to support these new allegations? And what does the country stand to benefit from this desperation to cause needless confusion? Did he attend the meeting where such incentives were purportedly offered the INEC Chairman? Does he have witnesses to support his assertions? he queried.
Oyekanmi who assured that the Commission is committed to free, fair and credible elections also charged Nigerians “to henceforth disregard and ignore any unsubstantiated allegation by the PDP.
He lamented that, ” rather than work with the Commission to ensure that the general elections that are less than 30 days away are successfully conducted, it is very sad that all what some people are determined to do is to cast aspersions on the good work that INEC has been doing in the last three years for nothing other than their selfish interests”
He insisted that, “accreditation and Voting will be simultaneously done as had been the case since January 2016 when the commission conducted the Bayelsa governorship election. It is important to also state that the Commission adopted this method because it was recommended by all the local and international observers that covered the 2015 general elections after ascertaining that over 2 million voters did not return to cast their ballots after accreditation in that election for a number of reasons”
