As the dust over the postponed general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC is yet to settle, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has accused the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government and the All Progressives Congress, APC of deliberately sabotaging the efforts by the commission to conduct credible elections.
The party in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, yesterday, noted that fresh evidence it gathered revealed that INEC commissioner and distant relative of the President, Amina Zakari, and another “high-ranking INEC commissioner played a pivotal role in assisting the APC and Presidency in sabotaging the operations of INEC and scuttling the February 16 elections.”
The statement read: “The reason for this is that President Buhari is determined to have a staggered election where he can use security agencies to subvert the will of the people at the polls.
“These APC elements in INEC engineered actions that affected the distribution and delivery of INEC sensitive materials to designated locations, thereby frustrating the electoral process.
“We also have details of how a hired team of data hackers corrupted the voters register, with a view to cause mass confusion and voters suppression on the election day.
“Nigerians would have been shocked that many registered voters in possession of their Permanent Voter’s Cards, PVCs, would have arrived their polling centers on election day, only to discover to their amazement that their names have disappeared from the register in their units.
“Intelligence available to us further details how agents of the Presidency infiltrated the distribution system and ensured that sensitive election materials do not arrive at the designated locations, with the views to stall elections in several states and pave way for a staggered election.
“This is in addition to deliberate swapping of sensitive election materials between different states and local governments so as to muddle up the process and stall election in affected areas. In some of states like Edo, sensitive election materials did not arrive at their designated points on APC interruption.”
The PDP urged Nigerians to continue to be alert in resisting any attempt to compromise the elections, even as it promise to continue to stand with the people in “exposing APC’s rigging plots and stopping them from creating more havoc and destruction of our democratic process.”