National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Prince Uche Secondus on Tuesday led hundreds of protesting members of the party to the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Abuja to register their objection to deliberate violations of the Electoral Act and guidelines during the February 23 election.
The PDP members, who were chanting “we no go gree oo, we no go gree” had converged at the Legacy House Presidential Campaign secretariat of the party from where they moved down to INEC secretariat.
When they arrived the office of the Electoral umpire a senior security officer had met them at the gate to attend to them but Prince Secondus bluntly refused, insisting that they can only talk with the INEC chairman or senior national commissioners.
After a slight delay INEC National Commissioner, Legal, Mrs. May Agbamuche-Mbu, came out with some other officials to listen to their complaints.
Prince Secondus reeled out several infractions and breach of the Electoral Act and INEC Guidelines for the conduct of the 2019 genaral election which characterised the conduct of the polls.
He thereafter handed over a letter to the INEC Commissioner detailing the alleged breaches for onward transmission to INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
In her response, Mrs Agbamuche-Mbu thanked the PDP protesters for the “civilised way” they approached the commission, stressing that “that is the way it should be.”
She declared that INEC officials are ready to do professional job but they cannot do it alone.
“But first and foremost, INEC has received your complaint. We are going to look at it critically, where we need to change we change. We will come together and work together.
“This county belongs to all of us and we must protect it with all our might. I believe that on Saturday the elections will go on very well but our mantra in this election is that we want peace in our country.
“I supervised Rivers and Bayelsa states, so I know what it means to invest in that area and the people of Rivers and Akwa Ibom know what they want.
“We intend to make it free and fair election, all we ask is that for your own sake too, your mantra should be peace.
“If you bring peace to the people on the field you can be rest assured INEC on its part, security agencies would do their part and we look at it again.”
Part of the letter to INEC chairman which was titled “Cases of Infractions and Deliberate Violations of the Electoral Law and Guidelines,” which was made available journalists reads: “The non-usage or selective enforcement of the Smart Card Reader (SCR) machines across the country. We observed with regrets that the usages of the SCR machines were enforced strategically in the South-South, South-East and the North-Central zones of the country which are essentially PDP strongholds.
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