PDP doubts INEC’s readiness for polls, cautions against disparaging military

•’Why elections dates were shifted’

THE Director General of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign organisation, Senator Ahmadu Ali, Tuesday expressed doubt over the readiness of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct the forthcoming general elections.

 Addressing a press conference in Abuja Tuesday, Ali also faulted the distribution of the permanent voter’s cards by INEC and said the failure of the commission to carry out voters education on the use of card readers was another source of problem for the elections.

 His words: “In terms of voters education, INEC should be blamed. There is none of you here that have seen the card reader demonstrated publicly. Have you? You see that is where the problem lies. If you the elite in the media have not seen where they trained their personnel and show you how this thing is going to operate, how do we and other Nigerians know how it is going to operate?

“This is what they should have tried out at local government level in one of the states and know what the problems are. By the way, the battery life of the card reader works for only eight hours. In remote part of the world where there is no sign of any light, by the time people line up, you accredit them and the eight hours are over and people are still on the queue, what happens? Will you disenfranchise them?

“These are things that he (INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega) should have tried out. Because they have introduced it and we don’t want to prevent progress, they should have mastered it. You and I still don’t know how it is going to work.”

  He also suggested the use of the temporary voters cards should the commission fail to distribute the PVCS to all Nigerians:

  “I gave an interview over two weeks ago, and I said the problem we are facing is monumental and INEC may fail monumentally. My suggestion was that if you get your TVC, they should allow you to use your TVC. If you voted in 2011 and you have the old voter’s card, they should allow you to use it because this is the first time they are introducing this methodology and we have not mastered it.”    

  According to Ali, the electoral body has attracted suspicion to itself on the manner it is distributing the PVCs, and unless drastic changes are made by INEC, the election might record serious challenges.

  “From all indications, INEC is not fully prepared for the elections. These are issues with the PVCs. Almost 30 million people are yet to get their PVCs despite the fact that the date of distribution was extended. Will it be possible to have a credible election when millions of Nigerians are disenfranchised because of lack of permanent voter’s cards?

  “There are also reports that the PVC readers are not fully distributed and tested. How can INEC handle cases of faulty card readers? Do they have a credible plan B in situations where voters are lined up and the card readers refuse to work? Ballot boxes are reportedly inadequate. Adequate training of staff for the election had not been concluded and there are other problems facing INEC.”

   “Quite clearly the shift in election date is meant to save INEC from monumental embarrassment. I would like to reiterate that the PDP is ready for the election any day,‎” Ali pointed out.

    Also Tuesday, the Director of Media and Publicity of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, debunked views being canvassed by the international media that the general elections were postponed principally because of Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast.

   Fani-Kayode said the decision to postpone the elections never emanated from the government of President Goodluck Jonathan as being speculated, but from INEC.

 He made this known during his brief one-on-one interview session with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) African Service last night.

  He said INEC agreed to shift the dates for the elections mainly because many eligible voters were yet to get their PVCs. He stressed that the percentage of those who were yet to get the cards was still high as at the time the dates of the elections were shifted.

   He said INEC had announced that about 34 percent of eligible voters in Nigeria were yet to get the voter’s cards, stressing that the scheduled general elections could not have been allowed to go on with a high percentage of Nigerians being disenfranchised.

   Fani-Kayode told the BBC that Boko Haram became part of the problem for postponing the election because the service chiefs suggested to INEC that they could not guarantee security during a nationwide election, while the attention of the military would be concentrated on the task of flushing out the insurgents from the north-eastern part of Nigeria where they have been operating.

  He debunked speculations that Boko Haram has now assumed an influence on politics in Nigeria to the extent of causing the change of election dates in in the country.

  He said although the insurgents before now were operating freely in some parts of Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, with a spate of bombings, the military had responded and fought valiantly to push them to the north-east zone of the country.

   He gave kudos to the Nigerian soldiers whom he said did a remarkable job in containing the rampaging activities of members of the Boko Haram Islamic sect in Nigeria.

   Fani-Kayode said the postponement of the Nigeria’s general election has never affected the preparations of the PDP, noting that the party was ever ready to go full blast into the elections if they had been allowed to hold on the scheduled dates.

  The Deputy National Chairman of PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, in a chat with newsmen in Abuja also denied that PDP was behind the shifting of polls dates, lamenting alleged attempts by APC to politicize the military from its professional role of ensuring the unity and stability of the country.

According to Secondus, “the APC is just playing to the gallery and unnecessarily overheating the system by beating the drums of war and shouting wolves where there is none.”

The deputy national chairman of PDP said, “the truth is that INEC was not ready for the elections and lacks the ability and strength to say so. How can INEC say that the basic reason for the shift of the elections was the security crisis in the Northeast states without telling Nigerians the challenges it is facing in the distribution of the PVCs.

“Let INEC tell Nigerians the details of the report submitted to it by the two United States Democracy institutes. I mean the reports from the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI).

“INEC is keeping quite on the report that was submitted to it as far back as January 20 or thereabout. If INEC is not for mischief, let the commission tell the world its level of preparedness in terms of training of more than 900,000 ad-hoc staff and the distribution of all sensitive materials.

“How can INEC claim to be ready for the elections when in some states, about 50 percent of the voters were yet to collect the voter’s cards. In Lagos State with the highest number of voters, more than 33 percent were yet to collect their PVCs. Yet INEC says it is ready to conduct the elections. Is INEC out  to disenfranchise eligible voters and then find another way to discredit the entire electoral system?

“What of the card reading machines, has INEC test-run these machines, have all the PVCs for the elections in the country been collected? We have it on good authority that the PVCs for five or four states are not yet distributed, let alone collected by the eligible voters. INEC should be honest enough to tell Nigerians the truth than hiding under security reports.

“Have you read the NDI, IRI report, where the delegation on pre -election assessment expressed concerns over the shoddy arrangements by INEC. (Brought the report and read out). The delegation is concerned that millions of permanent voter’s cards (PVCs) have not yet been distributed by INEC. Although INEC plans to move the distribution of the PVCs from the local government level to the level of wards (which are similar units under the local council level down to the polling points), that exercise has not started in all the states. Moreover, some Nigerians stated that in a number of states, the distribution exercise has repeatedly been postponed in some locations, leading to further erosion of trust in INEC.”

Secondus, who frowned at the continued denigration of the military by APC, warned that “the military is the professional body that is charged with the maintenance and stability of the country and should not be dragged into political issues. This is in the overall national interest of all Nigerians. The APC is trying to pour mud into the face of the military and cause crisis in the country.

“The military is the backbone of all nations and we as politicians must avoid at all times dragging this revered institution into politics. A stitch in time saves nine. APC should avoid dragging Nigeria into crisis.

“When the military says that it cannot guarantee lives and property during election and advised that the elections should be shifted, why does APC doubt the decision of the military. What is six weeks in the life of a nation for elections to take place, if not the APC plot of throwing away the baby and the bath water.”