· Ruling party issues 24hrs ultimatum on INEC to publish final list of voters
By Oguwuike Nnadi
As Nigerian get set to elect their next leaders in Saturday’s presidential and national Assembly elections, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has issued a 24hr ultimatum to the the Independent National Electoral Commission'(INEC) to make public the total number of voters who are expected to participate in the elections
It would be recall that the INEC had earlier stated that a total of 93, 522, 272 voters completed the process of the Permanent Voters Card (PVC), with Lagos, Kano and Kaduna sates leading in the log, although there has been reports of several uncollected PVCs in several states
The Director of Election Planning and Monitoring directorate of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Babatunde Raji Fashola, who made the demand while briefing journalists on the preparedness activities of the party ahead of the Saturday polls noted that since the process of PVC collection has ended, INEC should acquaint the various political parties of the total number of expected voters
“The big issue now is that with just a few hours to the elections, I think it is time for the regulator…
“We are in the homestretch of the election and we think it is important now that INEC, the regulator to let us know – all the parties and the nation, to let us know how many people actually collected Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).
“I think is very important for the credibility of the results and the credibility of the elections.
“We have been acquainted with how many people registered, but we don’t have the numbers of how many people collected PVCs and that is a very important ask.
“As I said to you earlier, at every point in time INEC has largely, especially through my learned friend, Festus Okoye always acquainted us with what has happened, the voter registration, when this would start. We even attended the simulation exercise with the BVAS. If they have been consistent with in providing all of that data, how many did this, how many did that, I think that it is only logical that we know how many have collected and that is the context in which we are demanding for such details
“And I think I speak the minds of all the parties by saying. How many people collected PVCs, the breakdown of the PVCs collection per state and per local government and to every unit of electoral activity that INEC can provide that information.
“We think it is a very important piece of information that will help INEC reinforce the credibility of the exercise that it is undertaking.
“Because, we are the Election Planning and Monitoring Directorate, we have all of the other data but we don’t have that data. It is a crucially missing data in which to close our planning and projections. So, we asked that data be made available in the shortest possible time. Hopefully, not later than the close of business today or certainly not later than 24 hours from now.
“Other than that we are busy doing what we do best – preparing, planning. Our candidate is also campaigning in Lagos at this moment. Other teams are working on details of the last few hours of the election.
“We remain very optimistic that we will be victorious in this contest,” he said.
On how the party plans to mobilize the agents on election day, considering the impact of the naira scarcity in the country, the Minister Works said, “We’ve trained our agents, we started that process long before this development (naira swap) became a real problem. But the enthusiasm from our agents and from our supporters is very inspiring and as it is comforting. What we hear from them is whether they get money, whether they get fuel, they are going to work for APC, they are going to deliver Asiwaju and all our candidates and other matters of money will be resolved later.
The Works minister also noted that the election umpire has no choice but to obey the high court order that barred it from engaging the M C Oluomo led Lagos State Park Management Committee in the distribution of election materials in the state, describing it as a rule of law.
“I think that by now, from my own public service records, where I stand on rule of law is no longer a matter for debate. I have been a public servant for 21 years and it is not what I say now that matters or what I do. It is the consistency of my conduct
“I see that some sections if the media have tried to suggest that I was inviting certain authority to act in defiance in the court order.
“For me, there is no choice between the rule of law and my life. It is a force chiu e because my and really means nothing. My life really means nothing if it is not live with the rule of law, that is what protect all of us.
“So, anybody who is faced with an order of court, whether it be INEC, whether it be anybody is bound to comply. Whether you like the court order or not, if you don’t like the court order, the rule has been set down from centuries ago that you must go back to the same court to say I am challenging this order. The person to whom the order is made should simply comply. There is no choice, it is the rule of law or nothing.
“So when some sections of the media try to paint a picture when I was creating a hypothesis, they were just stretching common sense to a ridiculous ends”
