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ADP faults INEC over poll timetable, alleges it was designed in APC’s favour

By Adamu Abuh, Abuja
12 January 2018   |   1:55 am
An opposition political party, Action Democratic Party (ADP), yesterday faulted the 2019 general elections timetable released by the independent national electoral commission (INEC).

Photo Credit; rockcityfmradio

An opposition political party, Action Democratic Party (ADP), yesterday faulted the 2019 general elections timetable released by the independent national electoral commission (INEC).

ADP’s national chairman, Yabaji Yusuf Sani who spoke to reporters in Abuja, alleged that INEC’s decision to conduct the presidential and national assembly election first before the other elections must have been designed to favour whoever is the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Sani expressed fear that the incumbency factor would come handy to President Muhammadu Buhari who could influence the outcomes of the Presidential, National Assembly poll but the subsequent Governorship and State Assemblies polls.He canvassed a reversal of the ordering of the elections so that both the governorship and state house of assemblies’ poll would precede that of the presidential and national assembly poll.

Said he: “We are not comfortable with the order of the election. The presidential election shouldn’t have come before the other elections because the APC may likely exercise the powers to interfere with the other elections. “Once you have the president calling the shots, the election would no longer be free and fair. There would be a bandwagon effects. We want INEC to look into that.

“ We are proposing that those mass based elections into the governorship and house of assemblies seats should come first. We want the arrangement the other way round. What we have now is not democratic. It is akin to saying might is right.”

Nevertheless, he said the timetable provides Nigerians a historic opportunity to exercise and make sacrosanct, their supreme power to decide through the ballot box those that would administer the country after the 2019 poll.

Lamenting government’s inability to tackle the socio-economic and political problems bedeviling the country, he remarked that the ADP remains the veritable platform that can provide Nigerians a credible alternative.

Said he: “The ADP is set to lead the nation out of the woods and the frightening security situation in the country. As I speak to you today, the APC led government, in the last three years has demonstrated their unwillingness to unite the Nigerian people.“It does appear to APC that they must re-work every structure in this country to suit parochial ethnic tendencies and religious tendencies.  

“ADP is poised to reverse these dangerous tendencies and promote the innate desire of every Nigerian for a united Nigeria and provide a credible and vibrant political platform to accommodate the youths of this country who are organizing and determined to salvage their country for a better future. The youths and a new generation of Nigerians are saying though tongues and tribe may differ in brotherhood we stand.

“INEC must ensure a level playing ground and begin to fashion out more effective strategies for hitch-free polls as it will appear APC’s increasing pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari to re-contest the Presidency in 2019 in the face of his abysmal performance, must have been informed by perfected plots to rig the impending elections.”  

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