61 political parties want Amina Zakari redeployed, reject INEC election guidelines

At least 61 political parties have kicked against the draft
released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on
election guidelines.

Ikenga Ugochinyere, publicity secretary of the inter-party
advisory council, said in a statement that the 61 parties made
their displeasure known in a petition submitted to INEC on
Friday.

According to Ugochinyere, the parties disagreed with INEC on
eight clauses which they said “will ruin the 2019 elections”.

Among the clauses is the simultaneous accreditation and voting
processes which INEC introduced for the elections.

“Political parties demand retention of 2011 and 2015 separate
accreditation time and separate voting time to help forstall
rigging with the presence of voters at the polling unit instead of
INEC 2019 simultaneous accreditation and voting,” he said.

“Political parties demand announcement of accreditation figures
by 12 noon on election day and recorded in a signed form and given
to party agents before voting starts to forstall doctoring of
election figures during collation.”

The statement added that the parties demanded end of PVC
collection 10 days to election and the disclosure of the total
number of PVCs collected based on various polling units.

“Political parties rejects the clauses in the guideline which
allows unduly accredited voters to vote especially the clause that
allows voters with PVC whose name is not in the register of voters
to vote,” it further read.

“Political parties demand transparency in collation and
transmission of results with accredited representatives of election
observers and political parties monitoring.

“Political parties reject the creation or usage of secret
polling units called voting point settlement and demand full list
and location of such units.”

The parties also demanded the redeployment of Amina Zakari, a
national commissioner at INEC, as head of the collation centre.

They sought her replacement with Okechukwu Ibeanu, federal
commissioner in charge of operations, “to ensure credibility and
balancing”.

“Parties threaten to pass vote of no confidence on INEC chairman
if he goes ahead to release the contentious guideline on Monday
without further consultation with Political Parties Chairmen,” the
statement read.