More than two-thirds of registered political parties in Nigeria have major disagreement with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over what they considered eight obnoxious clauses inserted into the Election Guidelines that will affect the credibility of the 2019 elections.
The political parties which smelt a rat with the INEC draft guidelines, demand the retention of 2011 and 2015 separate accreditation time and separate voting time to help prevent rigging.
They insisted that the number of accredited voters should be known before the commencement of voting just as they demanded the presence of voters at the polling unit instead of INEC 2019 simultaneous accreditation and voting which would create room for manipulation.
The 61 opposition political parties specifically demanded for the announcement of accreditation figures by 12noon on election day and recorded in a signed form and given to party agents before voting starts to avoid doctoring of election figures during collation.
The political parties equally demanded the stoppage of PVC collection 10 days to election and disclosure of the total number of PVC collected on polling unit basis to political parties.
They totally rejected the clauses in the guideline which allows unduly accredited voters to vote particularly the clause that allows voters with PVC whose name is not in the register of voters to vote.
The parties also demanded for transparency in collation and transmission of results with accredited representatives of Election observers and political parties monitoring.
They also rejected the creation or usage of secret polling units called “Voting Point Settlement” and therefore demanded full list and location of such units just as they equally demanded that INEC meets with party chairmen before the final release of the Election guidelines.
Other demands include; “The redeployment of Mrs. Amina Zakari as head of collation Centre and replacement with a Federal Commissioner in-charge of Operation, Prof. Okechukwu Ibeanu to ensure credibility and balancing.
“Reject the use of former Youth Corps members and staff of Federal Government Agencies as Ad-hoc Staff.
“Threaten to pass vote of no confidence on the INEC Chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu if he goes ahead to release the contentious guideline on Monday without further consultation with the political parties Chairmen.”
The signed resolution and petition to the INEC chairman and the federal commissioners by the 61 political parties was submitted to INEC leadership after an emergency meeting of the party leaders.
