The All Progressives Congress (APC) has demanded a total
cancellation of Saturday's governorship election in Anambra State based on the
massive disenfranchisement of people across the state, caused by the blatant
incompetent and/or deliberate sabotage by the electoral commission itself.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its Interim National
Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the call for total
cancellation supersedes its early call for a rerun in four local government
areas,and is based on the report it received from its agents as well as from
local and foreign observers during the poll.
Worse still, APC said, delivery of materials to the stongholds of
the APC candidate, Senator Chris Ngige, was either done very late or not at
all, a development that further robbed over 300,000 of his supporters in three
key local governments of Idemili North, Idemili South and Awka South of their
franchise.
''After consultations with our agents as well as with local and
foreign observers, we have discovered that what we earlier complained about was
a child's play, compared to the widespread disenfranchisement that was
orchestrated by the same body given the responsibility of ensuring a free, fair
and creditable election on Saturday.
''We discovered that INEC has set up a multi-layer arrangement to
ensure that most voters in the state were disenfranchised, apparently acting
out a script to manipulate the result of the election in favour of a certain
candidate. Where voting materials were supplied, the commission provided wrong
voters' register.
''Coming after the charade in Delta, this is a serious development
that raises questions about the ability of INEC to conduct a free, fair
and transparent elections anywhere in Nigeria. It is particularly serious
because if people who registered to vote are not able to do so, and even
the votes of those who managed to cast them do not count, then anarchy is
looming,'' the party said.
It called for a probe of INEC to determine why it has taken it
upon itself to sabotage its own elections, even when people are determined to
endure the orchestrated inconveniences and shun all acts of violence, as was
witnessed in Anambra on Saturday when people waited patiently and peacefully,
only to go home in total disappointment.
''This is a new low for INEC, and unless something is done
urgently, the electoral commission may plunge Nigeria into a crisis from which it may not recover,'' APC warned.
Alhaji
Lai Mohammed
Interim
National Publicity Secretary
All
Progressives Congress (APC)
Lagos,
Nov. 17th 2013
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