The Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) agent at the National Collation Centre, Chief Osita Chidoka, has demanded that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) produce the accreditation of voters done by the use of Smart Card Readers (SCR) on the election day.
Chidoka was addressing the INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu at the National Collation Centre on Tuesday after the Bauchi state election results was announced which saw the All Progressives Congress (APC) polling 798,482 and PDP 209,313.
Chidoka said: ” The issue before us, Mr chairman is that we we feel strongly about and the chairman of the PDP has written you a petition.
“We are worried that the promise you made, the commitment you made and INEC made that as we are doing this collation of results, you will give us the details of accreditation captured by the card reader in the country.
“Yesterday (Monday) my colleague raised the issue and we thought that when we come back this morning as we are listening to the states, we will be seeing the accreditation by the states by the card reader.
“This Mr. Chairman, I like it to be on record that we want to see the accreditation for Bauchi state, for Borno state and Yobe in particular and of course, for the rest of the country because the number as we are seeing, it seems to me that we live in two countries.
“Why people in the south have issues with the SCR, why complaints were all over the place, we seem to have quiet and peaceful elections in places where the people have complained of severe cases of insecurity and harassments by the military and bandits.
“So, we would like you Mr. Chairman and I forward this letter to you to say that we will appeal that if it is possible Mr. Chairman, that before we proceed to the next state you should please, project to us what the card reader has captured as the accreditation in these states.
“We are supposed to read from the card reader,the electronic collation as against the manual information that we are getting to process information here. While it isn’t yet signed into law in your guidelines it was made clear that no voting should take place where there are no card reader.
“So, Mr. Chairman, we must appeal to you that we would like you to project these accreditation as done by the card reader.
“Please, if any of your staff is available, he can please, take a copy of this letter from the chairman of the PDP saying that what we are doing here will require us to have the accreditation as done by the electronic card reader.
The INEC chairman thanked Chidoka but said: “there is a procedure for submitting correspondence to the Commission.
“We haven’t shut down our office. This is the International Conference Centre where we are using as collation centre. Kindly submit your letter to the office, it will be acknowledged.
“Your letter will now be studied and we will respond, accordingly. I believe that there are details in the letter that we need to study.”
