The Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation (PDPPCO)
has called on Nigerians to hold the Chairman of the Independent National
Electoral Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, responsible for the card
reader glitches in yesterday’s Presidential and National Assembly
elections.
The malfunctioning of the card readers in many polling units in parts of
the country has forced the INEC to extend the election to Sunday in areas
where the card readers failed and the electoral boy had resorted to manual
accreditation.
Director of Media and Publicity of the PDPPCO, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode said
yesterday that the fears that PDP had all along expressed over the use of
card readers for this crucial election have now been confirmed.
According to him, “We had raised a number of issues about the card reader;
for instance, we had argued that the card reader should have been test-run
for a smaller election before deploying it for an election of this
magnitude; we had raised other concerns, but the INEC under the Chair of
Professor Attahiru Jega, had insisted on using the machine.
“Now that the machine has messed up the elections in many polling booths
in parts of the country, necessitating the extension of the exercise to
Sunday, it is now very clear that our party, the PDP, and the Presidential
Campaign Organisation were right after all in their reservations about the
use of the card readers.
“The malfunctioning of the machine is just the first instance of the
imperfection and deliberate sinister designs for which INEC, acting in
cahoots with the APC, wanted to deploy the machine. The other components
of the sinister designs will soon unravel to the shock of Nigerians.
“Apart from the card readers that largely malfunctioned to the extent that
our presidential candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan could not have his
fingerprint verified, result sheets were not provided in many places.
“We will be forced to do the needful to ensure that the opposition APC and
Professor Jega do not rig the elections against us, but we will like to
call on Nigerians, to hold Jega responsible for the failure by the
Commission to conduct elections as scheduled for Saturday in all the
polling booths in Nigeria.
“It is shameful that just like he did in 2011 National Assembly elections
when he announced the postponement of the election midway due to failure
to fully deploy electoral materials, Jega, who boasted that the Commission
was ready to conduct the election with the use of card readers, has failed
to deliver.
“We call on our teeming PDP members and supporters to remain calm and
steadfast as we wait for the Commission to put its acts together and as we
hope to run away with victory in spite of the obvious and deliberate
shenanigans and subterfuge to manipulate the election against us by the
INEC and its collaborator, the APC.”