INEC’s guidelines are dangerous but we won’t boycott elections —Agbakoba

Sixty-one political parties are opposed to the guidelines released by INEC for the 2019 election. Why is your party one of them?
The guidelines are not acceptable. The guidelines; guidelines is even a small problem. The main thing is the perception that people have that INEC is not independent. I think that is the crucial issue and I think the chair has to a lot to convince us that they are ready to deliver credible, free and fair election.

The issue of this Zakari woman, for me, is not really a problem that she occupies that position but it is the perception. If they say the job is not so consequential, why don’t you move her? Just move her so that we are all happy? Nothing is lost. But keeping her there against  national public outcry is insensitive and therefore I am not at all convinced that INEC has done all that they should do to show their neutrality

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Which of the procedures is your party against in the guidelines?

Not only are we against the procedures, we are also against failure to public consult. Festus Okoye is going about on national televisions claiming that we had inputs. A lot of us saw those guidelines for the first time on Sunday and we told INEC it is not acceptable. A lot of us are not even interested in the content. That is not what IPAC stands for.

If 61 parties say there is something wrong about it, no matter how inconsequential you think they are, you should know that there is really something wrong.

 

Yet you are going on with campaigns?

What are we going to do? Stop? We will absolutely be foolhardy enough not to campaign. You know in those days when you going to boycott.

Boycotting is not an option, you will have to engage all the processes, so you will keep campaigning but keep also putting pressure on INEC in a hope that they would have the commonsense, not only to remove Zakari, but also to revise the guidelines. We cannot sit down and do nothing.

 

There is apprehension that the president is not ready to create a level playing ground and conduct credible election. Do you harbour such concern?

Yea, yea, yea! In spite of all his avowed good intentions, he (Buhari) keeps speaking about good intentions, but the contrary plays out because there are all kinds of things going on.

Failure to change the service chiefs; these are indications. If he is truly removed from the process, he shouldn’t care who service chiefs are.

If in case, because of Boko Haram, the armed forces are not really part of the electoral process, it is the police.

 

Why are you retaining Idris? What confidence do I have that a man whose job has expired is still there? It is a very big question mark. So, the president has to do more to show us that indeed he is truly removed from the process. The APC comes across as absolutely desperate to do everything to stay in office.