The All Progressives Congress (APC) has raised fresh alarm about the Aug. 9 gubernatorial election in Osun state, saying about half a million Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs), which were either unclaimed by their authentic owners or were obtained fraudulently, have been cloned by unscrupulous persons ahead of the election, with the sole purpose of rigging.
“These cloned cards, mostly in the hands of persons from states other than Osun, are to be used along with the authentic PVCs issued to the electorate in Osun state during the Aug. 9 Osun governorship election,” party National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed has said.
The two prominent contenders in the next Saturday poll, PDP and APC have engaged in allegations and counter allegations in the run up to the election.
In a statement issued in Osogbo on Monday, APC alleged that, “already, we can confirm that the hundreds of thousands of people in possession of these cloned cards all over Nigeria, especially in the states neighboring Osun, are being induced monetarily and instructed to super impose their photographs on the cloned PVCs.
“The game plan is for them to arrive early at the the polling booths on Election Day, where conniving electoral officials will turn a blind eye to this fraud by not checking whether or not the names of these impersonators with cloned cards are on the voters register before going ahead to accredit them, to pave the way for them to use the cloned cards to vote at the expense of the genuine holders of the cards,” it said.
APC said based on the dubious plan, unscrupulous security agents – both official and unofficial – will be at hand to brutalize, arrest and detain any agent or voter who may want to challenge this
illegality.
The party therefore called on INEC, if it is not part of this diabolical plan, to ensure that only the voters registers used to issue out the PVCs to voters up till Aug. 4th will be used to conduct
the Aug. 9 Election.
“We also demand that copies of these registers, which are already in possession of the local government electoral officers, be made available to all political parties at least 72 hours before the election. Anything short of using the registers that contained the names of the authentic voters will not be acceptable,” it warned.
APC thanked the people of the state of Osun, who are desirous of a free, fair and credible election on Aug. 9, for reaching out to the party with very useful information that will thwart any rigging plan and ensure the success of the polls.
The party urged the people of the state in general and APC members in particular to be very vigilant ahead, during and after voting on Saturday, against the background of the desperation to win at all costs by the PDP candidate, who went ahead to conjure an opinion poll purportedly by USAID showing he was leading every other candidates, until the USAID disowned the phantom poll.
“Their desperation knows no bounds, hence they will do anything, no matter how illegal, to thwart the will of the people. But no power is bigger than people’s power, and no inducement is worth anyone’s conscience. The votes of the people of the state of Osun must not only
be counted, but must count on Saturday,” it said.
