Inec says PDP is putting the lives of its staff at risk with false claims it plans IDP polling units in Niger and Chad

NIGERIA'S Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) has accused the main opposition the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of putting the lives of its staff in danger with claims that it is conniving with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to rig elections.

Next February, Nigeria goes to the polls in what is expected to be a close two-horse race between the APC and the PDP and already accusations of election rigging are rife. earlier this week, the PDP accused Inec of conniving with the APC to rig the elections by operating poling units in neighbouring Chad and Niger Republic, which voter numbers would be inflated.

At the moment, Nigeria's constitution does not allow diaspora voting but the PDP had alleged that Inec intended to allow refugees in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Niger Republic and Chad to vote. Nigeria is currently home to the largest number of IDPs in the world due to the Boko Haram insurgency that has forced about 1.7m people into camps dotted around the country, while hundreds of thousands of others live in neighbouring countries.

In a rebuttal of the claim, however, Inec said it had no plans to allow IDP camp refugees to vote, describing the claim as hate speech. Inec spokesman Rotimi Oyekanmi, castigated the PDP's publicity secretary Kola Ologbondiyan for making the claim, saying that it needlessly puts the lives of its staff at risk.

Mr Oyekanmi said: “I find it distasteful that Mr Kola Ologbondiyan can deliberately embark on peddling complete falsehood about Inec in this manner, with the sole intent of discrediting all the good efforts being put in place to ensure credible 2019 general elections. The story about the possibility of so called IDPs located in Chad and Niger Republic voting in the 2019 general elections was as a result of a misrepresentation of facts by a newspaper in its story on the Validation Conference in respect of the framework for voting for IDPs held on December 12 in Abuja, for which the commission had to promptly issue a rebuttal.

“Everybody knows that displaced persons living in foreign countries cannot be regarded as IDPs but refugees and there is no provision in our laws for any Nigerian living outside Nigeria to vote during the 2019 general elections. But Kola Ologbondiyan has continued to insist that the commission is planning to establish 30,000 polling units and give the so-called IDPs in foreign countries the opportunity to vote in the general elections.

“What this man is doing, by implication, is to put the lives of Inec permanent and ad-hoc staff, especially the young National Youth Service Corps members at risk during the 2019 general elections with his continuous portrayal of the commission as untrustworthy and fraudulent. This is not what Nigerians need at this time and this is certainly not the way to be an excellent spokesperson."

He added that Inec is not a political party and Inec is not planning to establish any new polling units anywhere. According to Mr Oyekanmi, Inec's only interest is to conduct free, fair and credible general elections in 2019 and the commission requires the cooperation of all stakeholders, including political parties, to achieve this objective.