Buhari`s certificate sage: PDP may pass a vote of no confidence on INEC
(Nigeria) The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP Presidential
Campaign Organisation has challenged the Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC, to address the issues surrounding the certificate of the All
Progressives Congress, APC Presidential Candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, or
face a vote of no-confidence from the party.
Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, Director, Directorate of Media and
Publicity of the organisation, at a press briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, said,
the media parley was to raise issues that played up on the certificate of
Buhari, adding that Buhari had made a shocking and belated disclosure on January
27, that the INEC had his documents without being specific about the documents
he was referring to.
This, he said, was yet another ``squalid attempt to give
Nigerians the impression that INEC has his certificate.
"If this is true, it represents a somersault from his
original position which was that INEC has his affidavit and it once again
reveals Gen. Buhari for what he is. With this latest antic, Gen. Buhari is
obviously trying to smuggle a newly acquired certificate into INEC through the
backdoor.
``If this is true and if INEC allows such a thing to happen,
it would put a serious question mark on its impartiality and credibility. It
would mean that it has collected his newly-acquired certificate, 40 days outside
the stipulation of the Law.’’
Fani-Kayode said that Gen. Buhari had also referred
Nigerians to INEC's Legal Adviser on the issue, adding that the same legal
adviser had earlier in response to numerous inquiries in December 2014, told
the newsmen that INEC had published all that the presidential candidates
submitted.
He had said that in the case of Buhari, FORM CF001 (no
certificate attached) and affidavit which was a court papers and not personal
document was submitted.
Fani-Kayode, therefore, wondered at what point the affidavit
transmited into additional documents or when additional documents were provided
to INEC in line with the law.
``The electoral body must come clean on this matter;
otherwise we will be compelled to pass a no-confidence vote on it. If INEC is
complicit in the desperate and despicable attempt to extricate Gen. Buhari,
without compliance with the provisions of the law, from this lingering
embarrassment, we will have no other choice than to harbour the suspicion and
fear that the electoral body is already compromised and can lend itself to the
ungodly agenda of truncating our victory when our candidate wins.”
He, however, urged the election observers to keep watch of
the unfolding events regarding Buhari’s qualification or otherwise, stressing
that in other countries, it was about obeying the rule of law and not about
protecting the political interest of an individual.
This, he said, was especially so since a free, fair and
credible election was not about the day of voting alone, but also the processes
leading up to the elections
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