From Aloysius Attah, Onitsha
A civil rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has perfected arrangements to ‘manufacture’ bogus votes known as “magic hinterland presidential votes” from the North-West States of Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara; the North-East States of Bauchi, Yobe, Borno and Adamawa; and the North-Central State of Niger for its preferred presidential candidate.
Intersociety in a statement released in Onitsha yesterday signed by its Board Chairman, Emeka Umeagbalasi, recalled that during the 2015 Presidential Poll, the mentioned states which are majorly securitization unmanned areas during elections magically produced over 7.65m manual/fake votes for the APC out of total of 10.2m manual/fake votes credited to the same Buhari/APC.
This was according to INEC statistics which further disclosed that “out of 15.4m total votes for Buhari/APC in the poll, 10.2m were made up of manual (fake) votes with only 5.2m votes genuinely emanating from PVC/INEC Smart Card Reader”.
The report said statistics further indicated that only 190,000 manual/fake votes for Buhari/APC came from the 17 Southern States and that out of Goodluck Jonathan/PDP’s total of over 12m votes in the Poll, only 3.3m came from manual/fake votes.
“Similarly speaking, in 2019 Presidential Poll, the same 12 major presidential poll rigging Northern States magically produced 9,118.940 or over 9.1m “votes” or over 60% of the “winning votes” for Buhari/APC out of total of 15,191,076 credited to him and his political party as the “winner of the poll”.
The group also lamented that as it stands today, no fewer than whopping 76m genuine Nigerian citizens of voting age under 18 years old and above age brackets have been disenfranchised and forbidden by INEC from voting and participating in the crucial Feb 25, 2023 Presidential Poll.
It noted that as at early Dec 2022, 77.7m voting citizens were disenfranchised by the Commission but today, the number is projected to have minutely gone down to 76m following the ongoing ‘INEC makeshift PVC distribution’.
It said however that the projection is subject to downward or upward review pending when INEC discloses the actual number of PVCs distributed since 12th Dec 2022 (if any).
“Originally speaking, not less than 120m genuine citizens of voting age exist in Nigeria out of the country’s total UN projected population of 218m as at Dec 2022, out of which 55% or 120m belong to voting age. The original 77.7m voting age citizens had included estimated 30m unregistered voters mainly, if not mostly comprise of voting citizens of South-East and South-South”.
“Others included 29.5m registered voters without PVCs involving 20m pre-2019 registered voters without PVCs and 9.5m 2022 new registrants. INEC had on 31st May 2022 through its National Commissioner for FCT, Nasarawa, Kaduna and Plateau, Mohammed Haruna disclosed that “there are about 20m uncollected PVCs pending since 2019”. Outside the 30m unregistered voters and 29.5m registered voters without PVCs as part of the 77.7m disenfranchised Nigerian voters, there are also 18.2m destroyed registrations involving those registered in 2022 totaling 27.7m, out of which INEC deliberately, flimsily and discriminatorily destroyed whopping 18.2m and allowed only 9.5m.
“Totality of the above brings the total number of disenfranchised voters in Nigeria ahead of the crucial Feb 25, 2023 Presidential Poll to 77.7m, out of which a projected reduction of 1.7m subsists. It must be remembered that the over 76m voting citizens were disenfranchised by INEC through ethnic and religious fuelled discriminatory policies adopted by the Commission during the 2021/2022 Continuous Voters’ Registration and the PVC distribution exercises.”
“This is to the extent that INEC went out of the way to flood the National Register of Voters with tens of millions of Muslim underage children, illegal migrants, fake names and stolen PVCs in its desperate bid to outnumber genuine non Muslim voters especially members of Northern and Southern Christian populations.” The group said.
