Following the opposition’s outrage over the appointment of Amina Zakari as chairperson of Election Collation Center, the Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON) Osita Okechukwu, has asked the People Democratic Party (PDP) to stop shopping for excuses and concentrate more on its campaign.
Speaking with newsmen on Friday in Abuja, the APC chieftain queried whether Amina Zakari will be the Returning Officer fir her to rig election in fabour of APC?
“One is constrained to advice the PDP to leave propaganda, stop shopping for excuses and concentrate more on real campaign. For the truth of the matter is that the electoral machine under the state of the art Card Reader, one of the greatest antidote to rigging invention, is impeccable. There is no way Hajia Amina Zakari can manipulate the Card Reader process. How can she alter or stop the results from Enugu, Ekiti, Bayelsa or even Jigawa or any other State for that matter?
“I laughed when I saw my friend Kola, spokesman of the PDP banging the table that Amina will manipulate the results. How? Is she going to be the Returning Officer? Is PDP Agent going to sleep? Is there fear that he will be compromised by Amina? My understanding is that Amina’s role is more administrative than electoral result management, pure and simple.”
When confronted with the non signing of the Electoral Act by President Muhammadu Buhari, Okechukwu retorted, “President Buhari is a fan and beneficiary of the Card Reader and was even the one who reminded the National Assembly of the omission of the Card Reader. The Card Reader process which starts with immeasurable accreditation mechanism has plugged up to 98% of the traditional method of rigging.
“Please ask yourself why politicians resorted to Vote-Buying? Vote-Buying is now the main vice of our electoral process, not ballot box snatching or other rigging methods. Card Reader technology has plugged big loopholes of election rigging.”
On why Okechukwu posits that PDP will loose, he said, “the day His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar emerged in the primary, we celebrated it. We could have been more worried if Governor Tambuwal of Sokoto had won.”
Asked what’s the difference between Atiku and Tambuwal, Okechukwu replied, “Atiku’s baggage is heavy, integrity deficit huge and falls within the same age grade bracket in Igbo parlance with Mr President.” He didn’t present any major choice-wall to block Buhari. Even those who ordinarily don’t want Buhari cannot sincerely take Atiku as an alternative. That’s the main issue.
“My submission is that PDP is shopping for excuses to cover the impending failure in the presidential election. They should examine the main reason why PDP stakeholders are covertly both North and South supporting Buhari? It happened to Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.”
