National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu yesterday took the Independent National Electoral Commission to the cleaners, declaring that the electoral body failed in the distribution of the permanent voter’s cards (PVC) in Lagos State.
Asiwaju Tinubu spoke yesterday at a press conference held by the Lagos State Chapter of the APC.
In every one of the 11 local governments in the state where the first phase of the distribution of the PVC was monitored by key party officials including the Lagos APC chairman, Otunba Henry Ajomale, Tinubu said the reports brought back were unanimous that INEC’s performance was abysmally poor.
He emphasized that the best thing for INEC to do was to start afresh, stating that what has happened smack of a collusion to rig the election in favour of the government at the centre.
His words: “This is a colossal failure and it has eroded my confidence in INEC to be able to midwife a successful 2015 election.”
On the reduction of the number of registered voters in Lagos to 4.8, Tinubu challenged INEC to publish the names of the individuals who engaged in double registration, stressing that the electoral body lacks the power to disqualify anybody on that basis given that it is not a court.
“INEC must publish names of close to 2 million excluded voters, INEC is not the court of law. You cannot exclude Nigerians from exercising their franchise.
You cannot automatically without the court of law disqualify them. If you fail to publish and give reason you are also violating their constitutional rights.
“To me this exercise has failed and we reconsider it as a dry run, a rigging exercise, INEC has colluded with the Presidency, they are closing party to rig the election from beginning to the end.
If for four years you are not ready with PVC and few months to election, PVC is not ready and you have not been able to start capturing those who are now18 years and you have 30 days minimum to display voters’ register before election, how are we sure INEC is prepared?”
Source:
Sun News