FOCUS•Voter’s Register: Ubah campaign accuses INEC of plot to rig poll.>>> As the November 16, Anambra State governorship election draws closer, the Ifeanyi Ubah Campaign Organisation has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, of erecting some land mines to achieve a pre-determined result. Deputy Director, Media, of the organisation, Mr. Emmanuel Ibeleme made this known in a statement in Awka, Anambra State capital, yesterday. Ibeleme said that apart from non-display of voters’ register as required by the Electoral Act 2010 as amended, INEC also presented the 2011 voters’ registers to party officials for November 16, 2013, election without reflecting names of people who registered from the last election till date. Sections 19 and 20 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) says: “Subject to the provisions of section 16(1) of this Act, the Commission shall, by notice, appoint a period of not less than 5 days and not exceeding 14 days, during which a copy of the voters’ register for each Local Government, Area Council or Ward shall be displayed for public scrutiny and during which period any objection or complaint in relation to the names omitted or included in the voters’ register or in relation to any necessary correction, shall be raised or filed. “The supplementary voters’ list shall be integrated with the voters’ register and published not later than 30 days before a general election.” However, Ibeleme’s statement read: ‘’There are indications that last week’s hand over of the ‘voters’ register’ to political parties contesting the November 16, 2013 governorship election in Anambra State may have been a ploy by the INEC to deceive Nigerians and create a façade that will enable it rig the election on behalf of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA. ’’What INEC has done, as part of efforts to manipulate the results of the November 16, 2013 polls, is the handing over to the contesting political parties the voters’ register used in the 2011 election without the supplementary list of new and qualified voters, which it compiled in August 2013. It is very clear that what INEC claims to be the authentic and up-dated voters’ register is, indeed, faulty and so unfit for use in the election, since in the first place, it does not contain the names of the new and qualified voters compiled in August 2013. “If INEC goes ahead to use the purported voters’ register it handed over to the political parties in Awka, on Wednesday 16, 2013, it would not only make the November 16, 2013 election a fraud in that it would have been conducted on the basis of an old and deficient voters’ register, but chances are that electoral violence may manifest in Anambra State to a level where the political disturbances of 2011 in some Northern States would be a child’s play. “If INEC goes ahead to conduct the November 16 governorship election without an up-dated voters’ register, that will include the names and particulars of all those who participated in the supplementary voters exercise in August 2013, it means it wants chaos during the election.’’ For instance, he said people like former vice-president, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, was prevented from voting in 2010 because he did not find his name in the final voters’ list even when he registered for the election.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 01:10:20 +0000
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