Buhari won 2015 election with 13.5m fictitious votes, PDP alleges

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that President Muhammadu Buhari won the 2015 presidential polls with 13.5 fictitious votes casted by unauthorised persons that participated in the polls. This illegality, the party contends, was perfected by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s adoption of incidence forms in place of biometric accreditation of voters. The PDP vowed not to accept such ambiguous and electoral fraud by INEC in the 2019 polls, warning the electoral umpire to strictly adhere to implementation of biometric accreditation as stipulated in all extant Electoral laws. PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan at a press briefing on Friday in Abuja said the party will reject “The plan by INEC to substitute biometric accreditation with manual verification on self-recognition and thumbprint on the voters register”, for next year’s elections. The party said it was aware of the frenzied desperation of the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to rig the 2019 Presidential election and foist President Buhari back to office against the desires and wishes of majority of Nigerians. “Our party completely rejects the plan by INEC to substitute biometric accreditation with manual verification on self-recognition and thumbprint on the voters register. “Such primitive method of accreditation only opens the way for unlimited rigging, multiple, underage and alien voting, as well as ballot stuffing which will afford President Buhari and the APC to manipulate themselves back to power against the wish of majority of Nigerians”, he said. The party recalled that on Thursday, it vehemently rejected the plots by INEC and the Presidency to rig the election by creating illegal polling centres in Chad and Niger Republic, under the guise of “special arrangement” for displaced Nigerians in those countries to participate in the Presidential election. It alleged that such “special arrangement” is a plot to use such illegal centres for allocation of fictitious votes, massive ballot stuffing, voting by aliens, underage and unregistered persons to pull millions of fictitious votes in favour President Buhari. “Having been busted, INEC beat a retreat only to invent a fresh ruse by announcing that the “special arrangement” would only be for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) within the shores of Nigeria, while secretly retaining the illegal offshore voting plot. “Intelligence available to the PDP, including those from our sources that are privy to clandestine meetings between the Presidency and INEC, shows that instead of the open offshore voting centres, the Buhari Presidency had directed INEC to circumvent the checks by secretly opening illegal voting centres at the desert fringes and remote border lines with Chad and Niger, and use them to achieve its original plans to rig the Presidential election. “Part of the plot is to use these illegal remote centres, which will not have functional Smart Card Readers, to allow unchecked voting by aliens, and underage persons as well as provide the unlimited latitude for criminal allocation of fictitious votes for President Buhari and his party, the APC. It further informed Nigerians that, as part of the Buhari Presidency’s rigging plot, INEC has been instructed to deploy defective Smart Card Readers to IDP camps, particularly in some strategic northern states, to pave way for direct manipulations, including alteration of voter register and voting by unregistered persons, particularly, with the foreclosure of incident forms for manual accreditation. The party attributed this as the essential reason President Muhammadu Buhari has deliberately refused to sign the amendments to the Electoral Act, which among other things checked manual manipulation by insisting on the use of card readers for biometric accreditation of voters and elimination of over-voting. The PDP therefore rejected, “as completely deceptive, the untenable assurances and lip service by this overtly compromised INEC that it can deliver a credible election without an across-the-board biometric accreditation of voters and the use incidence form. “Our party completely rejects the plan by INEC to substitute biometric accreditation with manual verification on self-recognition and thumbprint on the voters register”. The PDP therefore cautioned INEC under Prof. Mahmood Yakubu not to be used to set the nation on fire but to immediately retrace its steps and untangle itself from the scheme of the APC as Nigerians will never allow them to have their way. Tunde Opalana, Abuja