Our Campaign on Course, Victory in Sight, Says PDP

 The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said its campaigns are on course, even as it reassured its supporters that it is already on the verge of winning the elections following the soaring nationwide acceptability of President Goodluck Jonathan and its other candidates ahead of the polls.

This is coming as one of the support groups of the party, PDP Integrity Vanguard, led by Senator Aniete Okon and Chief Sergeant Awuse, has expressed concern that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has refused to listen to the complaints of pitfalls from last Saturday’s test run of the Card Readers (CRs).

In a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Olisa Metuh, the party thanked its members and supporters who showed concerns over rumours against its National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu that he had resigned from office.

However, Metuh charged them to remain focused on the campaigns and not to be distracted, especially as such is not unusual in an election year.

“The party is very impressed with the quality of leadership President Jonathan is providing in the campaigns, which runs on his enviable performance and numerous verifiable achievements in all sectors of the economy.

“President Jonathan has left no one in doubt that he is a national leader and one of the greatest bastions of Nigeria’s unity. He has remained committed to the stability and progress of our great country, a stance, which has continued to endear him to the electorates. Indeed, the PDP is very proud of him and his leadership,” the statement said

The PDP said the achievements of the Jonathan-led administration had touched various sectors of the economy, positively impacting on the lives of all cadres of Nigerians across the zones and amongst all tribes, irrespective of class, creed and gender, pointing out that this was one of the major factors that stabilised the polity in the face of daunting challenges.

The party therefore urged Nigerians to be unrelenting in their support for President Jonathan’s reelection bid so as to move the nation to the next level of development with the consolidation of the gains already achieved through the Transformation Agenda of the current administration.

Meanwhile, the PDP Integrity Vanguard said it was worried over the refusal by INEC and its chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to yield to common sense and reason, and to recognise the glaring pitfalls inherent in the card reading machine as well as the consequent confusion that is inevitably occasioned at the polling units arising either from the malfunctions of the device or deliberate mishandling of same.

Okon and Awuse who addressed a press conference yesterday, said INEC not withstanding, has continued to be intelligent by half in its obstinacy to go ahead with the deployment of card reader.

“Let INEC explain how the so-called Voter Identification Number (VIN), which is supposed to be top security feature of the card is duplicated in across board with conflicting biometrics attached! Is this what the card reader is going to be dealing with?

“How is it that millions of people are still carrying the temporary voters cards from pillar to post even when INEC staff has told them that some unknown persons have collected them using fake biometrics (thumbprint)?  Can INEC explain till date, people still collect PVCs by proxy? Is that the system that is supposed to give us a credible election?

“We hold strongly that National Assembly erred in judgment when it endorsed the deployment of card readers for an election that we all know is a make-or-break outing? How can a technology that could not be piloted Ekiti and Osun because, according to INEC, those elections were too sensitive now be experimented in general election? Is INEC saying that those elections happen to be more sensitive and more critical to the survival of Nigeria as a corporate entity than Presidential and National elections?

“It is of  critical importance that the National Assembly should set up a joint committee of both houses to carry out a three-day forensic investigation into every department of INEC operations in the full glare of both the media and civil society. As we were made to understand INEC tested its card readers in only 225 polling units across 12 states.

“This is out of 180,000 poling unit across the country and represents 0.1%.
How can this be an acceptable statistical sample? It is an unconscionable as it is unacceptable that Jega and his INEC can risk the fracturing of this country irreversibly in pursuit of a goal that is clearly unattainable within the corporate entity we now know as our country Nigeria.

“The committee should further determine the vulnerability or otherwise of INEC’s database who developed the software INEC has deploy and the term of agreement among other things.”

“We have it on good authority that as at today, INEC has procured less than 1,000 card readers (less than 300 as at February 14 when it should have held Presidential election). This explains our untiring and unswerving demand that Attahiru Jega should come clean on his busted conspiracy to declare the APC winner of the now postponed February 14 elections.

“ This has further vindicated our position that Attahiru Jega was not prepared and was nowhere being ready as of February 14 and even now
We cannot allow Attahiru Jega plunge the nation into constitutional crisis capable of consuming the entire nation.

“The card reader is intended to merely confer unearned credibility on an election that is flawed ab ini tio. We therefore call on Jega to immediately disqualify himself, eat the humble pie and resign honourably and INEC to immediately jettison the card reader and revert to the careful use of voter register, as was the case in 2011,” the leaders of PDP Integrity Vanguard said.