Jonathan campaign accuses Jega of plotting to rig Buhari into office

 

The Campaign office of President Goodluck Jonathan has accused the chairman of Independent national Electoral Commission, Attahiru Jega, of plotting to aid the opposition All Progressives Congress rig, APC, in the elections that are to hold March 28 and April 11.

The Spokesperson of the campaign, Femi Fani-Kayode, who addressed a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, said Mr. Jega had decided to aid the APC rig the forthcoming elections through the manipulation of the production, distribution and collection of PVCs.

“Emerging trends have consistently shown calculated attempts to deprive parts of the country that would traditionally vote for President Jonathan of their PVCs whilst the parts of the country that would traditionally vote for the APC presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, are already armed with their PVCs,” Mr. Fani-Kayode said.

The PDP campaign spokesperson also provided details of the PVCs distribution and collection across the six geo-political zones and thirty six states of the federation to back up his claims.

Mr. Fani-Kayode reiterated his earlier position that Mr. Jega was actually forced to shift the elections from their original dates of February 14 and 28 to March 28 and April 11 respectively, principally because of INEC’s inability to distribute the PVCs.

“The Commission had claimed substantial readiness for the general elections despite that as at 5th February 2015, the total number of PVCs collected was 45, 829, 808, representing 66.58% of the total number of registered voters.

“We had immediately commended the INEC on the grounds that the postponement would enable the 23 million eligible voters who had not collected their PVCs to do so before the new dates announced for the elections,” Mr. Fani-Kayode said.

“But we have now realized how Professor Jega had disingenuously presented the reasons for the postponement of the elections at the press conference, making it look as if the problem was mainly security.

“We would like to say that the major issue that informed INEC’s decision was the deliberate attempt by the Commission to disenfranchise over 23 million eligible voters who are yet to collect their PVCs.

“The matter is that INEC has failed in its responsibility to produce and distribute PVCs to about 34 percent of registered voters who would require the cards to vote in the elections.

“This brings us to the issue of statistics of PVC distribution and collection, which we believe Professor Jega, as a person, acting in concert with some forces of retrogression, is playing games with,” he said.

Mr. Fani-Kayode then provided details of the PVCs distribution to buttress his points.

See the full table of the PVCs distribution and posers by Mr. Fani-Kayode below:

As at February 4, 2015

S/No.	States	Number of Registered Voters	Number of Cards Collected by Voters	Remarks
( a)	( b)	( c)	(d)	(e)
1	ABIA	1,396,162	1,073,799	76.91
2	ADAMAWA	1,559,012	1,073,799	80.68
3	AKWA-IBOM	1,680,759	1,328,714	79.05
4	ANAMBRA	1,963,173	1,222,002	62.25
5	BAUCHI	2,054,125	1,745,441	84.97
6	BAYELSA	610,373	386,125	63.26
7	BENUE	2,015,452	1,132,187	56.18
8	BORNO	1,934,079	1,320,667	68.28
9	CROSS RIVER	1,175,623	859,690	73.13
10	DELTA	2,275,264	1,556,476	68.41
11	EBONYI	1,074,273	714,351	66.50
12	EDO	1,779,738	1,062,370	59.69
13	EKITI	732,021	496,536	67.83
14	ENUGU	1,429,221	761,185	53.26
15	FCT	881,472	464,769	52.73
16	GOMBE	1,120,023	873,698	78.00
17	IMO	1,803,030	949,921	50.23
18	JIGAWA	1,831,276	1,460,620	79.76
19	KADUNA	3,407,222	2,976,628	87.36
20	KANO	4,975,701	3,190,417	64.11
21	KATSINA	2,827,943	2,245,303	79.40
22	KEBBI	1,470,648	1,232,357	83.80
23	KOGI	1,350,883	773,197