The All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to declare a three-day public holiday for collection of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) nationwide.
The party further stated that it would resist attempts by President Goodluck Jonathan-led administration to postpone the forthcoming general election.
The national publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who said this at a press conference yesterday in Lagos, argued that the reasons being advanced for the postponement were frivolous.
The party scribe said if the president and ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) were not terrified about the election and would want to scuttle the process, it should declare three days of public holiday for people to collect their PVCs.
He said, “The truth is that the forthcoming elections terrify the PDP and the Jonathan administration to such an extent that they are looking for ways to postpone or scuttle the polls. If indeed the Jonathan administration is genuinely concerned that many Nigerians have not received their PVCs, let it declare a three-day public holiday to give working Nigerians the opportunity to collect their PVCs.
“Let the government work with INEC to ensure that the PVCs are distributed at the polling units. If these steps are followed, within five days the distribution would have been completed.”
The APC spokesman added that APC had resolved that under no circumstance will the party accept a postponement, saying February 14 and 28 are as sacrosanct as May 29, the handover date.
He said, “The government has had four years to prepare, and the dates for the elections were announced over a year ago; therefore, there is no going back now.
“We note that the PDP has also said it is ready for the polls. That is good news. Let them now end their clandestine push for either postponement or the formation of an interim government, and stop engaging in scare and scandal mongering and dwell on issues ahead of the polls.”
He expressed his party’s confidence in the assurances by INEC that it was ready for the polls, and called on the Jonathan administration to give the electoral body all the support and resources it requires to organize successful elections.
“Any postponement of the election will mean that INEC is not independent and that it is being dictated to by the federal government, a position that will hurt the credibility of the electoral umpire.
“Finally, any postponement on the basis of the insurgency in the northeast will represent a victory for the terrorist group Boko Haram, and will create a constitutional logjam that will take Nigeria back to 1993. Believe me, we have travelled that route before and it was not pleasant,” Mohammed said.
Mohammed asserted that the plot in itself was one of the two-pronged approach being pursued by the PDP administration to either shift or scuttle the elections which are scheduled for February 14 and 28, and accused the Jonathan administration’s apologists of hiding under the facade that millions of Nigerians will be disenfranchised if the elections should proceed as scheduled.
Group protests at INEC headquarters in Abuja
Some civil society groups, under the aegis of the Nigerian Hopes Alive Project, yesterday staged a protest at the vicinity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), calling for an extension of both the presidential and National Assembly elections by 60 days.
They also agitated for the extension of the governorship and State House of Assembly polls by two months. The elections are scheduled for February 14 and 28 respectively.
However, the INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, had declared that the commission would stick by the timetable for the elections, noting that there is no cause for alarm over the distribution of the PVCs.
But clad in white vests and green face caps, members of the civil society organisation blocked the entrances leading to Zambesi Crescent that led to INEC national headquarters.
Their protest obstructed business concerns like the TERTFUND, WAEC, Veterinary Council and the National Medical Council which are located on the same street as the electoral commission.
They chanted and carried placards with inscriptions like “Why Nigerians want a 60-day extension?”, “INEC has not produced all the PVCs; those produced have not been adequately distributed.”
Speaking for the organisation, its coordinator, Mrs Ifeanyinwa Nwagbo, said that the extension of next month’s general election was necessary because it would help to reduce violence on Election Day.
She said, “Imagine that INEC in the last eight months commenced the distributed of the permanent voter cards and within that eight months has only succeeded in distributing 38 million cards out of the 68 million eligible voters; what magic would INEC do to distribute 30 million PVCs between now and the presidential election day, which is less than 16 days; what magic – when it is not sure that all the PVCs have been received from the manufacturers?
“Our demand is clear, extend the general elections by 60 days. It is still within the constitution. The United States should not tell us what to do, because if it is in their country, they know what to do and do it right.”
“It is still within the constitution to extend it and save the nation from an imminent disaster. If eligible voters go to the polling stations and see their names, but they were not allowed to vote, do you know the level of violence it would cause? We are saying that a stick in time saves more than nine,” she said.
But while reacting yesterday, the chief press secretary to the INEC chairman, Kayode Idowu, told LEADERSHIP that the commission was not aware of any protest, and stressed that the agitation for postponement over the 30 million undistributed PVCs was imaginary.
He, however, said “We don’t know where they got the 30 million PVCs – that are yet to be distributed; it is in the imagination of the people; it does not exist anywhere in INEC’s operation.”
He added that a remarkable improvement in distribution had been made since the decentralisation of the distribution process at the ward levels.
Lawyer sues Buhari over WASC result
An Abuja-based lawyer, Chike Okafor, has dragged the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), before a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, asking it to disqualify Buhari from contesting the February 14 presidential election over the controversies surrounding his West Africa Senior Certificate (WASC) result.
Okafor had approached the court through an originating summons with suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/01/2015 and named Buhari, APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as defendants to the suit.
The plaintiff is asking the court to determine whether the information given by Buhari in the prescribed forms submitted to INEC for the 2015 presidential election does not contain falsehood? If yes, whether Buhari should not be disqualified from participating,” the plaintiff submitted.
He premised his suit on Section 131 of the Constitution which prescribes a minimum qualification for nomination to participate in presidential election and Section 31 of the Electoral Act that stipulates that all presidential candidates to depose to an affidavit in proof of compliance with the constitutional requirement to be president of Nigeria.
The plaintiff also contends that Buhari failed to prove that he had the minimum educational qualification to run for the post of president.
He further submitted that Buhari’s affidavit that he possessed the West African School Leaving Certificate (WASC) was false, as he not only failed to attach it to his nomination form as compulsorily required, but his claim that the certificates were in the custody of the military had been denied by the director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier-General Olajide Laleye.
The plaintiff however submitted that he had approached the court based on Section 31(5) of the Electoral Act that allows a person with reasonable grounds to believe that false information had been given by a candidate in his affidavit or document submitted to INEC in support of his nomination form, to approach the court for the candidate to be disqualified.
The case has not been assigned to any judge by the time of filing this report.
About two days ago, some lawyers under the umbrella body of Coalition of Concerned Lawyers of Nigeria (CCLN), headed by a senior advocate, Chief Amechi Nwaiwu, called on the inspector-general of police to probe Buhari’s alleged forging of his school certificate.
While addressing journalists Abuja yesterday, Nwaiwu said that the University of Cambridge result sheet attached to the school result released by Government College, Katsina, had an alteration on the mathematics column which suggests an attempt at concealment.
Amaechi stated that the coalition would have approached the court to challenge the certificate but for the strike embarked upon by judiciary workers.
The coalition further noted that the results sheet attributed to the Cambridge examination body and released by Buhari’s former school is clearly a super imposition of one document on another.
The concerned lawyers said, “The column lines on the part where names are printed do not align with the ones on the blank columns, while there is an introduction of extraneous lines on some other columns. The document which was purported to have been made in the 60s contains computer prints on one section while the other section was handwritten.”
The lawyers also noted that Section 131 of the constitution, as amended, provides for qualification for election as president, adding that Nigerians had the right to ensure that persons contesting to rule them had the necessary qualifications.
They remarked that where there is an allegation of forgery, the Nigerian Police has the powers, on a complaint, to investigate, interrogate and prosecute any person found to have committed forgery of a document or committed perjury.
“We call on the inspector-general of police to investigate, interrogate and prosecute any person upon a complaint found to have committed perjury or forgery of school certificate,” Amaechi stated.
The coalition, however, stated that since Buhari, relied on the school certificate, he was bound to produce it, not a statement of the certificate.
The coalition also called on the IG to investigate, interrogate and prosecute upon complaint on persons found to have forged Permanent Voter Cards, PVC.
“A fundamental aspect of our constitutional democracy is a credible electoral process with a credible voter register, right to vote and freedom to vote. Freedom entails the voters’ right to have the franchise recognized through registration and possession of PVC, to cast vote freely, to decide how to vote and expect his ballot to be counted,” the lawyers noted.
Election: EU observers visit Buhari, rule out monitoring in North East
The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) has ruled out the possibility of monitoring the forthcoming general election in the north east due to insecurity in the region.
EU chief election observer, Santiago Ayxela, who disclosed this during a courtesy visit to the APC presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, in Abuja, said that the mission would deploy 90 observers to monitor the elections across the country except in the north east region.
He added that the first batch of 30 observers had arrived in the country while the second batch would be in Nigeria by February 7, and final batch before the elections.
“We can’t be in the north east for security reasons, but we have people deployed very close to the north east and we have contacts there and so we will try to get better information as much as we can have on the region. The present situation does not allow us to go to the north east,” Ayxela said.
He said that the planned election was important to Nigeria and the EU, adding that whatever happens to Nigeria would affect the whole of Africa and the EU.
He said that the mission would monitor the process and conduct of stakeholders to ensure compliance with relevant laws, not only on the day of the elections but before and after the polls.
“The EU EOM is a big mission. It is a mission that started in November 2014 and will be in place till mid-April. What happens on the Election Day is not only the problem; it is what happens during and within a space of time and how the law has been complied with.
It is also about the propaganda, activities of the media and any possible claims after the elections,” Mr Ayxela said.
On his part, Gen. Buhari described the EU observers as “experienced people who had been covering other countries’ elections.
“They are qualified to come for these elections and, as you have observed, they cannot cover all the 120,000 polling units but they will place people in strategic places to advise them,” he said.
EU visits PDP
The EU delegates also visited the PDP yesterday after their meeting with Buhari and reiterated their earlier position – that none of their observers will be deployed to the north east region for next month’s elections because of the security challenges there.
Chief Observer of the EU Election Observer Mission (EU EOM) in Nigeria, Ambassador Santiago Ayxelà, stated this yesterday when he led members of the mission to the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party at the party’s national secretariat, Abuja.
He revealed that the EU mission had been in the country since November last year and had monitored the primaries of the political parties, and affirmed that “for security reasons, unfortunately, we can’t deploy into north east region,”
He also expressed support for the Abuja Peace Accord, and noted that the EU had no favoured candidates or political party.
“We apply international rules for the election; that means we must be neutral, we don’t interfere at all as a mission,” he said.
On his part, the PDP national secretary, Prof Wale Oladipo, promised that the ruling party would not go back on the peace accord despite the recent attacks on its campaign train by suspected supporters of the APC.
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