APC PLANS TO RIG LAGOS GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION-PDP

Press Release -

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has been charged with grand plans to rig the 2015 polls in Lagos State.

Making this accusation in Lagos, the camp of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governorship Candidate for Lagos State, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, said it had unearthed plans to use the ad hoc staff, including teachers and civil staff, employed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to swing the polls in its favour.

In a Press Statement released today, the Director of Media and Publicity to Mr. Jimi Agbaje, FELIX OBOAGWINA,

cited as proof the sack of two ad hoc staffers by INEC, on the excuse that they were preventing non-indigenes from collecting their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) 

It accused the APC government of getting the Executive Secretaries to compel teachers and civil servants in the local government to attend meetings in which party candidates and leaders directly campaigned.

The statement said such actions traduced the civil servants’ right to freedom of thought, conscience and Right to freedom from discrimination as enshrined in Chapter IV of the Nigerian Constitution.

“What the Lagos State Government is getting the Executive Secretaries to do is contemptible and is a blatant abuse of office,” he said.

The statement demanded that INEC should go beyond the dismissal of the registration officials, and prosecute them for colluding in the APC’s plan to disenfranchise non-indigenes and other voters opposed to the continuation of the current order.

INEC had exposed the dismissal in a press statement circulated among the media on Tuesday.

“Although INEC has washed its hands off the illicit conduct of the sacked ad hoc officials, we insist that the Commission must go beyond merely relieving those concerned of their jobs and must, in fact, make them face the law. They must be used as scapegoats to expose and discourage the shenanigans of APC,” Oboagwina said.

According to the statement, it was clear that the sacked ad hoc INEC officials were on the pay of Lagos APC, which realised that it could lose the vote of non-indigenes and had embarked on systematically disenfranchising them through getting unscrupulous officials to deprive them of PVCs.

It also charged APC with colluding with INEC officials to take PVCs from house to house for people they think were favourably disposed to voting for the ruling party in Lagos.

 “How did well-known APC members illegally secure the PVCs of people that they took to their owners at home? That is a case for INEC in Lagos to answer,” Oboagwina said. “It is part of the grand scheme by APC to rig the coming elections.”

Felix Oboagwina

Director of media and publicity to the PDP Governorship Candidate for Lagos State, Mr. Jimi Agbaje