By Olusegun Lawrence The Peoples Democratic Party Campaign Organization has challenged the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof Attahiru Jega, to be “honourable and transparent” by publishing accurate information on the state of the Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, the organsiation’s Director of Media and Publicity, Femi Fani-Kayode, alleged that Jega may have connived with the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, to secure victory if election had gone ahead on February 14.
Fani-Kayode, alleged that the INEC boss held secret meeting with some stalwarts of the APC in Dubai, where they allegedly fine-tuned how to ensure electoral victory for APC and came up with the idea of disenfranchising about 34 million eligible voters.
He said, “Pieces of information at our disposal have shown that Jega has had meetings with APC stalwarts in Dubai and other cities in the world to perfect this wanton conspiracy against 23 million eligible voters.
“Besides, we have information that the PVCs that Nigerians are scrambling for are not in Nigeria and will not arrive before the elections. These PVCs are still in China and Prof Jega has strategically delayed their arrival to suit his electioneering permutations.
“Can Prof Jega show Nigerians proof that the Chinese company printing the PVCs has been paid in full by disclosing the total contract sum and the amount paid to date?
“Can Prof Jega show proof of arrival or expected date of arrival of all PVCs for the elections? “Can Prof Jega tell Nigerians how he could have distributed 23 million PVCs within 5days to election if there hadn’t been a postponement”?
Fani-Kayode, also queried the wide gap between collections rates in the states considered to be APC stronghold which is high while it is low in the PDP traditional stronghold states.
His questions, “Why are the PVC collection rates in the North Central, South-South, South West and South East much lower with the highest being 57%? Is it because these geopolitical zones may be pro-Jonathan?
“Why does the North West zone which includes Katsina (Buhari’s home state) have the highest collection rate of 80%?
“How come the North East also has 75% collection rate when, in fact, three states in this zone-Adamawa, Borno and Yobe- have been under the attack of Boko Haram insurgents, a development that has led to the displacement of many residents? Did the Internally Displaced Persons come back there to collect their PVCs?
“Why is it that North Central zone, which includes states like Plateau and Benue that traditionally vote PDP, has a collection rate of 48% when North East and North West have between 75 and 80% collection rates?
“Can Jega explain to Nigerians how Kano, Adamawa, Borno, Kaduna and Katsina, which were slated for Phase 3 and actually kicked off in November 2014, have achieved a 75-80% PVC collection rate whilst many states slated for Phases 1 and 2 and even some others in Phase 3 are still in the 40-50% collection rate range”?
The PDP Campaign Organisation therefore, charged Jega to come clean on the issue of PVCs distribution so that no eligible voters will be disenfranchised.
He said further, “We hereby challenge Prof Jega to be honourable and transparent. He should publish accurate information on the state of PVCs: how many PVCs are in the country? Where are they located state by state? When would the others arrive from China? How does he plan to distribute them before elections?
“We express our concerns today that Jega may have decided to aid the APC to rig the forthcoming elections through the manipulation of the production, distribution and collection of PVCs such that emerging trends have consistently shown calculated attempts to deprive parts of the country that would traditionally vote for President Jonathan of their PVCs whilst the parts of the country that would traditionally vote for the APC presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, are already armed with their PVCs.
“The PVC collection statistics for states and geo-political zones before the postponement of the elections as tabulated below would buttress Professor Jega’s contrived grand conspiratorial alliance with the APC to fraudulently secure victory in the elections:
