By Daniel Kanu
As Nigerians brace up for Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Friday accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of hoarding election result sheets for undisclosed reasons.
The party also alleged that its agents were being denied INEC
accreditation and identification cards “ostensibly to shut them out of
the election monitoring process and allow the All Progressives Congress
(APC) a field day to manipulate the process.”
The major opposition party said intelligence available to it from its monitoring activities showed that “INEC has been distributing sensitive election materials in most states of the federation without the Presidential and Senatorial elections result sheets.”
A statement by its national publicity secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, read in part:
“The development is already heightening tension and suspicion of
underhand method by the commission to open the elections for
manipulations and allow the APC to enter fictitious results for onward
transmission to collation centers.
“Intelligence available to us indicate that this is part of the plot for
which President Muhammadu Buhari’s relation by marriage, Mrs. Amina
Zakari, has been retained as the head of the INEC collation center.”
The PDP, therefore, challenged “INEC to show its impartiality by immediately releasing the presidential and senatorial elections result sheet as well as the accreditation cards,” warning that “any further delay will be a clear recipe for crisis as Nigerians are already highly agitated over the matter.”
“INEC should note that Nigerians are very anxious about this election and
any action that, in anyway, portrays or tends to portray the process as
being manipulated is capable of triggering a crisis of unprecedented
proportion in our country.”