Group charges INEC on free, fair election

THE National Democratic Vanguard (NDV) has again called alerted Nigerians to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) continued unpreparedness for a free, fair and credible 2015 elections.

   In a statement Monday, NDV spokesman, Kola Salawu, noted that despite the postponement of the elections, which raised hopes of improvement in the agency’s preparations, the various and continued lapses in the distribution and collection of Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) indicate that the commission is not still prepared.

   According to the group, “there is no doubt that this is a deliberate ploy by INEC to rig the 2015 elections based on several revelations on the romance by the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, with certain elements within the All Progressives Congress (APC).”

   It claimed that events of the past few days have exposed INEC’s collaboration with the APC in some of its strongholds, where the agency’s officials compromised the distribution process by giving chunks of the PVC to unidentified individuals for collection by proxy and sometimes through home delivery to persons known only to be sympathetic to the APC. 

 It expressed worries that “cards belonging to persons in certain localities and states find their way to other distant locations.

“For instance, the recent claim by the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Cross River State that he was alerted by his colleague in Kebbi of the presence of bags of PVCs belonging to Cross River voters in Kebbi State and similar allegation by the Governor of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun, that over 600,000 PVCs sent to Ogun were not for voters in the state.”