20110406
reuters

Abuja — The presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), has accused President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of applying undue pressure on the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega.

In a statement released Monday by the spokesman of Buhari, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, the CPC flag bearer said it was becoming doubtful if the National Assembly elections were aborted because of non-availability of critical materials.

He said there are now reasons to believe that attempts by some vested interests to manipulate the elections were indeed behind what led to the cancelation of the Saturday polls.

"We had hitherto believed that the National Assembly elections that had to be aborted and postponed in the middle of voting was because of non availability of critical materials as announced by Prof Jega. However we now have reasons to believe that covert as well as overt pressures are being exerted by President Goodluck Jonathan, the ruling PDP and their agents because of their vested interests in manipulating the outcome of the elections," he said.

He said CPC was demanding a probe of the role of INEC Director of Operations, Mr. Nuru Yakubu, in relation to what led to the bungling of last Saturday's elections.

Buhari's spokesman further called on Jega to clear the air on the rumour making the rounds that two sets of result sheets with the same serial numbers were allegedly printed by the official printer of INEC.

He said an earlier rumour that senior officers in the legal and operations departments of INEC deliberately engineered the delay/non-availability of the critical materials as an act of sabotage to discredit Jega, had been confirmed with reports of surreptitious or covert moves in light of the emergency meeting of the National Security Council chaired by President Jonathan with Jega and other senior officials of INEC after the postponed elections.

"The alarm bells and ominous signs are once again available for the discerning lovers of democracy to see the duress and undue influence that President Goodluck Jonathan and the ruling PDP are exerting on the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega.

"We see no reason for the President and National Security Council meeting in the first place. We also understand that there will be more surreptitious moves in the days ahead to embark on a media campaign of calumny to force Professor Jega to resign so that one of the PDP friendly INEC commissioners can be appointed as acting chairman of INEC," he said.

Speaking on what allegedly transpired at the security meeting, Odumakin said it was reported Vice-President Namadi Sambo, National Security Adviser to the President, Ministers of Defence and Police Affairs along with other service chiefs were present at the meeting at which accusing fingers were repeatedly pointed at the INEC chairman for the problems that led to the postponement.

He said Jega was chastised for turning down the offer for the military to be involved in the election logistics and that the government should henceforth constitute a task force consisting of the military and INEC officials to take over all election logistics.

Other conditions that were put forward to INEC "was that it should not combine the postponed National Assembly elections with that of the Presidential elections on the 9th of April as demanded by a majority of the opposition parties, that the Modified Open Secret Ballot system that INEC has adopted should be changed such that there should be no accreditation of all eligible voters prior to voting".