WorldStage Newsonline-- The Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly (SNPA) has faulted the recent defence of the
planned allocation of 30,000 new polling unit by the Independent Electoral Commission, saying it does not hold water as it failed to address the issue of lopsidedness. The group led by former Vice President, Alex Ekwueme, Chief Edwin Clark and Bishop Emmanuel Gbonigi in a statement signed by its Coordinating Secretary, Dr. Ayakeme Whisky said INEC chairman Prof Attahiru Jega should explain why only north deserved the increase when the purpose of creating additional polling units was meant to split large polling unit. Reiterating its call for the removal of Jega, the group stated, "The Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly wish to state without equivocation that Prof. Attahiru Jega's claims are spurious, hollow and indefensible. They are at best a demonstration of continued affront to the sensibilities of people of Southern Nigeria. Prof. Jega has to labour more to convince the people of Southern Nigeria that it was only the polling units of the North that had registered voters in excess of 500 persons and the North is curiously deserving of 21, 615 additional polling units to the detriment of the South. He knows he cannot in good conscience deprecate allegations of conspiracy and primordial parochialism. "Contrary to the averment of Prof. Jega that no polling unit has been created and allocated, it is reported (Nigerian Pilot of Wednesday, September 10, 2014, pp. 16) that the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Zamfara state, a state whose registered voters has been grossly depleted by half as a result of the Automated Fingers Identification System (AFIS) has already inaugurated a Committee to distribute the Jega's additional 1,163 polling units for the state. " Other states in the North have also reportedly commenced the implementation of the additional polling units created and allocated to them. Was Prof. Jega merely pulling the wool over our eyes, to endorse his make-believe stories and defenses when he claimed that it was a "framework" for approval? We consequently call on the security agencies to proactively put a finite halt to this insidious design by Prof. Jega to forestall further provocation and breakdown of law and order in the country. "Nigerians witnessed peaceful, free, fair and hitch-free elections in Ekiti and Osun states only recently. There was no evidence of over-populated polling units or polling stations. We make bold to say that Prof. Jega's continued recourse to the theory of excess registered voters per polling unit as a basis for the arbitrary creation of the additional polling units is a grand design to give opportunity for electoral fraud to the advantage
of the North. "We wish to remind Prof. Jega, in case he fails to recall, that the population census figures he has purportedly relied upon to estimate the additional polls remain a subject of dispute and contest. Interestingly, the Automated Fingers Identification System (AFIS) adopted by INEC to screen registered voters is premised on the obvious recourse by Nigerians to employ strategies to defraud any process initiated to define authentic numbers. "Therefore what makes Prof. Jega to think that the 2006 population census figures upon which he has made his extrapolation to estimate the 2015 population figure to 175 million is insulated from the national malady of under-cutting any process? Moreover, it is an error of judgment for Prof. Jega to premise the proposed delineation of polling stations based on estimated population other than registered voters. "The Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly wishes to reiterate our earlier immutable stand that the people of the South of Nigeria has lost Complete Faith, Trust And Confidence in Prof. Attahiru Jega. We do not believe, and cannot be persuaded to believe that Prof. Jega can remain an unbiased umpire in the forth coming 2015 electoral contest. All arguments advanced by Prof. Attahiru Jega, beyond being hollow and lacking in convincing substance, are encrypted thesis to ensure that power returns to the North at all cost in 2015. "As a matter of fact, we have it on good authority that Prof. Attahiru Jega had a meeting with the proponents of "President Goodluck Jonathan must not contest in 2015", the Northern Elders Forum before his so-called conceptual framework for additional polling units became effectual. He has become the public face of those who have been perfecting strategies, obscene and ridiculous, to force the hand of God to return power to the North. "Nigerians saw a lot of blood-letting in 2011. Nigerians are traumatized daily with the ceaseless senseless killings of innocent citizens by the insurgents. We cannot therefore afford to live to see another clever craft using the instrument of the electoral umpire to force another escalation of violence with the potential of claiming innocent lives. We will not accept this deliberate orchestration to plunge our dear country to cataclysm, especially by those who think that it is their birth right to continue to rule over others. " Nigerians no longer trust him to be our electoral arbiter as he has failed the test of impartiality. As a northerner, Prof. Jega has shown that he loves his north more than anything else. While we don't begrudge him, we wish to insist that Nigeria belongs to everybody, and therefore he cannot lord his whimsical imperviousness on everybody; a befitting place to show his corky dictatorial demeanour is perhaps Kano."


Source: Worldstageonline