The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has raised the alarm over the plan by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to open polling units in neighbouring Chad and Niger Republic.
The CUPP in a statement signed by its 1st National spokesman, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere said the plan is to add illegal five million votes for President Buhari at the 2019 presidential elections.
According to the statement, “Our attention has been drawn to credible intelligence and reports in the media of the opening of voting centres by the INEC in Niger and Chad under the pretext that the centres are for IDPs to vote.
“It was more worrisome that the report quoted the Chairman of INEC as having made this declaration in a public forum. Following the report, the Intelligence Unit of the CUPP has since uncovered the massive mobilization of Chadian, Nigerian and Sudanese citizens preparatory to their participating in the February 16th Presidential elections. We have also uncovered that the plot is targeted at generating nothing less than five million votes for President Buhari in the election.”
CUPP said this plot explains why the president refused to sign the amended electoral Act which according to the group would have made the Card Reader the only means of accreditation of voters for the election. “His only options now include allowing non Nigerians to participate in an election to determine Nigeria’s President and without accreditation,” the statement said.
The statement reads: “We hereby urge the INEC Chairman to retrace his steps and stand with the Nigerian people in these trying times as our electoral laws till date prohibit diaspora voting as no elections for the purpose of electing any public office holder in Nigeria can be held outside the geographical boundaries of the country. If any electoral staff or materials have been deployed outside the country for the purpose of these illegal and unlawful voting points, they should be returned to the country without any further delay.
“We consequently urge President Buhari to show some restraint, rein in his desperation and slow down his campaigners who are bent on pushing Nigeria over the cliff having realized that the Nigerian people have resolved to vote them out next year. This win-at-all-cost attitude must be condemned by all well-meaning Nigerians. Particularly, those involved in this latest plot include Gov. El-rufai of Kaduna, Gov. Shettima of Borno, Gov. Ganduje of Kano, Gov. Gaidam of Yobe, Gov. Masari of Katsina, Hon. Chibuike Amechi, a former head of an Intelligence Agency among others.
“This treasonable plot is capable of igniting a conflagration, the magnitude of which the President and his outgoing Party cannot contain. The collapse of this republic seems to be the target of these enemies of democracy. This last minute act of allowing foreigners who did not obtain the PVC to now participate because of the lacuna in not signing the amended Electoral Act is a plot that will fail as the will of the common man will triumph and that will is that President Buhari is a mistake of 2015 that must be corrected in 2019. Nigerians are asking, when did these over five million foreigners being mobilized register to vote? When did INEC register people in foreign lands to now allow them to participate in voting?
“For a president who has found it extremely difficult to set up a campaign team weeks after official commencement of campaigns and whose motley crowd of supporters do not think through issues should have known that there are no known IDP camps maintained by Nigeria in Niger and Chad hence the argument cannot fly. Or do they think they can bamboozle Nigerians with their usual propaganda to accept this act of desecration of the territorial integrity of Nigeria?
“Finally, we call on all Nigerians of goodwill to voice out now and condemn this act and caution the President that his disposition of do-or-die is heating up the polity and that he has the example of former President Goodluck Jonathan to guide him in his actions as the elections draw nearer.”