Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, is allegedly under pressure by the Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to compromise the 2019 general election.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, made the claim when he spoke with newsmen, in Abuja, yesterday.
Ologbondiyan, who is also the director of Media and Publicity, PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, said there are allegations that the presidency and the ruling party are making monetary offers and choice property offers, within and outside the country, to Yakubu, to allegedly rig the February 16 presidential poll for President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC.
The opposition spokesman urged the INEC boss to resist the pressure and conduct free and fair elections.
Ologbondiyan said: ”This is especially as many Nigerians fear that this is the reason behind the compromising insistence by INEC to lump together accreditation of voters and voting, a situation that will muddle up the process and pave the way for participation of aliens, underage and unregistered voters and allocate fictitious figures in favour of president Buhari and the APC.
“This scenario is also feared to be the reason INEC is succumbing to pressure by the Buhari presidency to retain Mrs. Amina Zakari, the president’s relation by marriage, as head of the collation centre, where she is being positioned to alter genuine results and allocate fictitious figures in favour of president Buhari.
“We already have information that the geo-spatial centres created by the INEC chairman, in the six geo-political zones, have also been dubiously duplicated by Mrs. Zakari, in all the zones from where APC and the Buhari presidency intend to assemble fictitious votes and transmit same to INEC’s database and Situation Room.
“We are also aware that the process of employing ad-hoc staff that will function as electoral officers, particularly in the presidential election, have already been compromised to favour the APC, under Yakubu’s watch, to manipulate the process.
Meanwhile, Yakubu has dismissed insinuations the Commission is under pressure to tamper with the elections.
At a meeting with the acting Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, and other senior police officers, in Abuja, yesterday said he understood that, being an election year, “people make all sorts of insinuations.
“I want to tell you that we, as a commission, have never been under any pressure to do what is wrong. We will never compromise our integrity to do what the law says that we shouldn’t…”