By Olasunkanmi Akoni and Dapo Akirefon

All Progressives Congress, APC, National Leader and
immediate past Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju
Bola Tinubu, has accused the Independent National
Electoral Commission, INEC, of planning to, deliberately, rig the 2015 general elections.

Tinubu, who stated this yesterday at a media briefing held at the APC Secretariat in Lagos, declared that the ongoing distribution of Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs), which commenced on Friday in Lagos, has failed.

The APC stalwart also criticised INEC for conducting
the exercise in only 11 out of the original 20 local
governments in the state, recognised by the Federal
Government, while demanding that INEC should
repeat and simultaneously conduct the exercise
across the state.

He said, “This is a colossal failure and it has eroded
my confidence in INEC to be able to midwife
successful 2015 general elections. INEC must start
the process afresh. The exercise must be conducted
simultaneously across the 20 local governments
recognised by INEC, at the same time.
“If they fail, we shall not disclose our strategy; if the
exercise fails, something will happen. May be we will go on the streets to protest, may be we will go to court, we won’t reveal our strategy”, but we have our demands”, he said.

Tinubu, though exonerated the ad-hoc INEC staff,
who are majorly undergoing the National Youth
Service Corps scheme, put the major blame on the
leadership of the Commission.
He stated: “We cannot blame the Youth Corps
members who are just helping, it is not their fault. It
is the people in charge from Abuja that failed.

“Four years ago, we sympathised with Jega, when he apologised to the nation over a failed exercise, but what are they going to say again?
“They had four years to plan and put their acts
together. This is a deliberate ploy to fail. They did it
deliberately to plan their rigging strategy”.

On the reduction of the voters list from over six
million people to less than five million in Lagos,
Tinubu demanded an immediate reinstatement of
the almost two million voters delisted from the list.
“INEC cannot disenfranchise anybody. We are
reporting the matter to our national secretariat.
Those people removed from the voters’ register are
almost two million. That is not acceptable, they must be put back on the list,’’ The APC leader said.

“INEC does not have the power to reduce or remove
anybody. INEC is not a court of law. By this action,
INEC has flouted the Electoral Act. “You cant say
almost two million people are ghosts. If there is
multiple registration, INEC must publish the names
of those people.

“These almost two million people voted in 2011, are
you saying they are ghosts. Were they ghosts when
they voted in 2011? INEC has failed and this is a
deliberate failure”.

Tinubu who wondered why INEC could not get the
process right in four years pointed out that the, de-
listing of voters in Lagos, hitches and seeming
failures were deliberate to pave way for rigging of the election.