- Alleges Yakubu ‘compromised to rig the election’ …INEC working to destroy evidence with BVAS Reconfiguration’
Following the alleged infractions that characterised the February 25th presidential election, the country’s main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has demanded for the resignation of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu from his position as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
PDP, in a statement issued on Friday said Yakubu is no longer fit to chair the electoral commission due to the alleged irregularities experience during the just-concluded presidential election.
The party in the statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba alleged that INEC subverted the will of Nigerians in the February 25, 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections.
Ologunagba further stated that call for resignation of Yakubu is hinged on the report of “brazen violation of the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 and criminal manipulation and alteration of election results”.
The party also condemned “the latest scheme” by the commission to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS ahead of the state polls.
Olugunagna said NEC’s insistence was meant to “erase and destroy evidence of its manipulation of the presidential election, denying Nigerians and parties” access to relevant information.
The spokesperson claimed Yakubu “was compromised to rig the election by brazenly violating the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 as well as INEC’s Regulations, Guidelines and Manual issued for the election”.
The statement partly reads, “The PDP has also reviewed the latest scheme by INEC to reconfigure the BVAS devices, erase and destroy evidence of its manipulation of the Presidential election, deny Nigerians and political parties, especially our Party and Candidate access to relevant information required to prosecute our case at the Presidential Election Tribunal.
“From all indications, the INEC under Prof. Mahmood Yakubu was compromised to rig the election by brazenly violating the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 as well as INEC’s Regulations, Guidelines and Manual issued for the election.
“It is also obvious that the Commission under Prof. Mahmood Yakubu deliberately sabotaged the uploading and transmission of results directly from the Polling Units to give room for the criminal mutilation, alteration and switching of election results across the nation in favour of the APC as now abundantly exposed in the pictorial and video evidence of compromised results sheets in many parts of the Country.
“Several pieces of evidence abound in States across the six Geo-Political Zones of the Country where winning figures lawfully scored by the PDP were switched in favour of the APC; where results sheet from polling centres won by the PDP were destroyed and replaced with fake results sheets in which APC was allocated unearned winning figures.
“This further explains why the INEC Chairman rushed to announce and declare manipulated results that were not transmitted directly from the Polling Units to INEC’s Server/Website and ignored the objections and complaints raised during the collation of results in deliberate violation of the provisions of Section 64 (4) (a) and (b), 64 (6) (a)-(d), and 65 (1) (c) of the Electoral Act. 2022.”
