The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Monday rejected the announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that it would hold a supplementary election after declaring Saturday’s governorship poll in Anambra inconclusive.
The party insisted that only total cancellation of the “grossly-tainted and widely-manipulated” election would be acceptable.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Monday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party also challenged INEC to come clear on how the election was sabotaged from within the electoral commission itself, “with a view to establishing how entrenched the forces of evil within the commission are and also to avert a looming national disaster into which an infiltrated, incompetent and conniving INEC can plunge Nigeria”.
APC claimed that it is now apparent that INEC is indeed not taking seriously the opinions of Anambra residents as well as local and foreign observers that most of the registered voters in the state were wilfully disenfranchised on Saturday.
“First, the electoral commission proposed makeup election in only 65 polling units in Obosi before scaling things up to a supplementary election ‘in those areas where election was cancelled’. But we say, without equivocating, is that a total cancellation of the election and the organisation of a fresh poll, under the supervision of a credible Resident Electoral Commissioner, will be acceptable to our party”, it said.
It also challenged INEC to quickly carry out an internal investigation to determine the extent to which Saturday’s election was sabotaged and compromised to the embarrassment of the nation, saying what occurred on Saturday may actually be treasonable.
“It is not enough for INEC’s detached Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega,
to tell the nation that an INEC official sabotaged the election in a certain part of the state, he must tell the nation who this fellow is, who he/she is working for, what is the extent of the damage he/she has done to this and previous elections, and whether or not he/she has access to the commission’s database of voters’ register, which was apparently tampered with for Saturday’s election.
“Prof. Jega must also tell Nigerians why 16 electoral commissioners, who migrated to Anambra days before the election ostensibly to supervise things, could not ensure the success of an election in a single state, when even a polling unit behind the INEC office in Awka did not get voting materials till after 9 am on election day”.
Meanwhile, APC has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of being an accessory to the shameful electoral malfeasance in Anambra last Saturday, going by the statement credited to the “discombobulated” party that the election was free and fair.
“In its inordinate ambition to humiliate our party at all costs, the PDP has ended up humiliating itself and embarrassing the nation. Or how else does one describe a bizarre situation in which a party will described as free and fair an election in which its own candidate and his family could not find their names in the voters’ register? The joke is indeed on the PDP!
“It is now clear who the PDP is working for, and that the party has no qualms about sacrificing its own candidate and disgracing the nation as long as it will achieve its aim of humiliating the APC”.
