THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that the confession by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that its card readers were being circumvented, confirmed its position that the Kogi and Bayelsa governorship elections, as well as the Kogi West Senatorial election, were all manipulated and therefore fraudulent.
Kola Ologbondiyan, the party’s National Publicity Secretary observed in a statement in Abuja on Thursday that the confession by two INEC commissioners; Festus Okoye and Haruna Mohammed on Wednesday, that the card readers were circumvented in elections conducted by the commission did not come to it as a surprise to the main opposition party.
The PDP posited that it had always held that no matter how much falsehood appeared to thrive, the truth will always catch up with it.
The statement added: “The confession by the commission vindicates the position of the PDP and majority of Nigerians that there were manipulations, alterations and circumventing of genuine data captured by the card readers and that actual results transmitted from polling units were tampered with.
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“The admission also brings to light why INEC had no convincing defence at the tribunal in the face of overwhelming discrepancies in the figures it declared in the Presidential poll.
“It is instructive to note that the confession by INEC has not only vindicated our party, but it has also placed a huge burden on the Chairman of INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu.
“It is indeed unfortunate that INEC can suddenly claim that it has just realised that the card readers have lost steam in our electoral process after they have been used to manipulate voting processes.
“Prof Yakubu (INEC Chairman) is now faced with the burden of how our electoral system has been corrupted by the manipulations in his INEC, all in the bid to serve group, rather than national interest.
“The INEC Chairman should accept his failures and vacate office without further delay. This is because there is no way Nigerians can continue to repose confidence in the commission under his watch.
“Of course, not under an electoral commission that condones the invasion of polling units, suppression of voters and stuffing of snatched ballot boxes; an INEC that cancels results in places where the election held peacefully while announcing fabricated results allocated to its favoured political party as valid votes.”
The PDP maintained that it totally rejected attempts by INEC to shift the blames for its failures to other political parties, saying: “It is on record that our party had consistently pointed to infractions created and allowed by INEC to facilitate rigging in elections.”
While calling on Nigerians to remain calm, the PDP charged Yakubu and the INEC leadership under him to “do the needful by vacating offices to save our electoral system from complete collapse.”
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