The Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) on Monday said the silence by the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) over the alleged discovery of “thousands of its Permanent
Voter Cards (PVCs) at the private residence of President Muhammadu Buhari’s
kinsman, the sacked Director General of the Department of State Services, Lawal
Daura, has indicted the commission.”
PDP said INEC’s silence placed a
“huge doubt over its integrity and capacity to conduct a free and fair
election.”
In a statement by its
spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, the opposition party charged the National
Assembly to immediately commence an investigation into the “veracity of this
allegation.”
PDP noted that since the news of
the “sordid discovery broke, neither the INEC Chairman nor any other officer of
the commission had offered any explanation to Nigerians, a development that
suggests the commission’s complicity in the allegation.”
The party said “Prof. Mahmood
should stop playing the ostrich and immediately come out clear and inform
Nigerians how thousands of electoral materials as sensitive as PVCs, under his
watch, found its way to the custody of a kinsman of the All Progressives
Congress (APC) presidential aspirant.
“Already, Nigerians are aware
that a blood relation of President Buhari is in charge of operations in INEC.
“On account of this established
relationship between President Buhari and this INEC official, Mahmood owes
Nigerians explanation as to the source of the PVCs allegedly found in
possession of Daura.
“Nigerians and the international
community can now see how INEC, under Prof. Yakubu Mahmood has completely
compromised the integrity of our electoral process, including frustrating
genuine voters from accessing their voters cards, which the public now knows
are being warehoused in homes of APC chieftains with the view to using them to
allocate fake election results for President Buhari.”
The party urged “Nigerians to
hold Prof. Mahmood directly responsible for this ignoble development,
particularly, given that his INEC has been indicted of other various
infractions tailored to undermine free and fair elections in 2019, including
secretly creating of illegal 30,000 pulling units in remote areas through which
they plan to fabricate figures and declare fake results in favour President
Buhari.
“This is in addition to the
refusal of INEC under Prof. Mahmood to clean up its register and remove the
host of underage voters which it used to rig elections for the APC in President
Buhari’s home state of Katsina last weekend.
“Nigerian are aware that INEC
refused to involve other stakeholders in its investigation of the presence of
underage voters in its register, and had also refused to make its findings
public, following documented facts supporting the existence of minors in its
register, particularly in Katsina, Kano and Kaduna states.”
The opposition charged the
“public to note the efforts by INEC to conceal these manipulations of our
electoral process in the run-up to a major general election and hold Prof.
Mahmood responsible for them all.
“Finally, we urge the National
Assembly to look into the extent of involvement of Prof. Yakubu Mahmood in this
clear effort to undermine the integrity of the 2019 general elections.”
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