by Eze Eluchie,
Like his
predecessor before him, Atahiru Jega, who had announced a skewed allotment of
‘new Polling Booths', allocating much more of such booths to areas in Nigeria's North East region where Boko Haram were supposedly in
control of than was allocated to entire regions in the South and had also announced
the discarding of the use of PVC Cards mid-way into the 2015 Presidential election (an
announcement that was deliberately ‘heard and implemented’ by INEC officials
mainly in some sections of the country), Chairman of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC), Mr. Mahmood Yahaya, buoyed by a feeling of
impunity, has announced his ‘Golden Rigging Bullet’ well in advance of the
elections – allowing so-called Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) resident in
camps in Chad and Niger Republic to vote during the forthcoming 2019 general elections.
With the
security forces already stretched to their limits guarding and protecting the 120,000+
polling booths across the 36 States and Abuja, pray, who will guard and protect
these imaginary polling booths in IDP Centres in Chad and Niger? The Chadian
and Nigerien Gendarmes? Will agents of opposition political parties be allowed
exit Nigeria (considering the borders are usually closed for the periods of
elections) to monitor the polling centres in Chad and Niger Republics’? Where
these opposition party agents are even allowed to travel out of Nigeria to
those polling centres located in foreign countries, will the authorities of Chad
and Niger allow these opposition party agents to enter these IDP Camps to
observe and monitor the elections for their parties?
Wonderful.
Brazen plan to heist spurious votes.
The IDP
population has been a popular tool of embezzlement of public and international
donor funds throughout the course of the Buhari administration. From the infamous
multimillion dollar ‘contracts’ for grass-cutting contracts supervised by former
Secretary to the Federal Government, Babachir Lawal; to the illegal approval of
billions of Naira by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, ostensibly for ‘emergency
interventions’ in IDP Camps; to disappearance of thousands of bags of rice and
other relief materials meant for the IDPs, donated by friendly governments and
international relief organizations. One only wonders what will be the fate of
the millions of ballot papers to be ‘allocated’ to the IDP Camps in Niger and
Chad Republics.
In his
folly, the INEC Chairman and his gang failed to realize that these ‘Nigerian’s
in IDP camps in Niger and Chad Republics’ (whose numbers supposedly range anywhere
from 0 – 7 million) also constitute Nigerians in Diaspora. If Nigerians in Chad
and Niger Republics are allowed to vote, then all Nigerians in Diaspora (inclusive of those in Europe, the USA, Asia and so on) MUST be
allowed to vote.
Dear INEC
Chairman, Mahmood Yahaya, with this skewed plan to allow IDPs vote, you have
been caught red-handed with your hands in the cookie jar. Coupled with the fact
of your filial relationship with the incumbent occupier of the Office of
President of the Federal Republic, the only honourable option left to you now,
if indeed you had one iota of care for the sanctity of the 2019 general
elections, is to resign your position as INEC Chairman, and allow for an
unbiased truly independent umpire to superintend over the said elections.
Picture: Nigeria’s
President Muhammadu Buhari and INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yahaya
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