Sixty-one of the 73 political parties that will participate in next month’s General Election will on Monday file a suit at a Federal High Court, Abuja to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from releasing the election guideline.
BusinessDay reports that the electoral body may release the final guideline on Monday.
The political parties are also asking the court to quash some controversial clauses of the draft guidelines.
A statement on Sunday by Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, National Chairman Action Peoples Party (APP), said some of the guidelines are in conflict with the provisions of the 1999 constitution (as amended).
Ugochinyere who doubles as Spokesperson of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), said the suit which will be filled on Monday at the Federal High court by 10am, has four National Chairmen of four parties suing on behalf of the 61 parties, which had earlier rejected the guidelines.
The Plaintiffs are Ugochinyere of APP; Sam Eke, Green Party of Nigeria (GPN); Nsehe Nseobong, Restoration Party (RP) as well as Kenneth Udeze, Action Alliance (AA).
He said the parties will be seeking an Exparte Application for an injunction to restrain the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu from going ahead with the planned release of the guideline.
The statement reads: “The chairmen of the Political parties still insist that the only way to have free and fair election is for those obnoxious clauses contained in the gudileine which does not promote free and fair elections to be expunged and that the INEC chairmen summons an emergency meeting with Political Parties chairmen to finally address the grey areas contained in the guidelines to avoid the 2019 election running into a hitch and credibility crisis even before the day of election.
“The parties still insist that the chairman of INEC retains the 2011 and 2015 separate accreditation and separate voting system which Nigerian voters are fully familiar with and avoid creating confusion and loophole for massive tampering of result with the continuous/same time accreditation and voting. INEC recently tried the method in few re-runs but that is not enough to extend such voting method to all parts of the country few weeks to the election.
“The demand of party chairmen is for INEC to continue the separate accreditation and separate voting system and ensure that at the end of accreditation across the country on election day, that inec polling unit staff first announce the total polling unit accredited figures and sign and issue out to party agents at the polling unit before commencement of voting thereby protecting the sanctity of the votes by securing the accreditation figures which if announced before voting and given to agents it will make post election and voting manipulation difficult because the accreditation figures are already out and riggers cant tamper with the election outcome or increase the votes again.
“Other contentious issues are the flawed accreditation procedure which allows fake voters whose names are not on the voters register including people with fake PVC or voters not properly accredited been allowed to vote.
“The party chairmen are currently mobilising more party leaders to move against the INEC chairman in the event that he goes ahead to issue out the guideline without the input of the political parties and without removing the obnoxious clauses which will ruin free and fair election. The options on the table of the Political parties chairmen will not stop on tomorrow’s court action but will include a vote of no confidence on the INEC chairman and the commison including a call to step down and a persona non grata declaration and mass protest to alert Nigerians that the 2019 election process have been manipulated”.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
