The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sunday alleged that Frankland Briyia’s declaration of governorship ambition for Bayelsa State while in office as the Cross River State Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, has exposed INEC as being partisan under the chairmanship of Prof. Yakubu Mahmood.
It also alleged that the development confirmed that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, used APC members to write figures for President Muhammadu Buhari to win the February 23, presidential election.
The opposition party’s spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, made these claims in a statement in Abuja.
PDP maintained that “the manifestation of Mr. Frankland Briyia, the erstwhile Cross River state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), as an All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship aspirant in Bayelsa state, while still in office, is a direct confirmation that the APC used its members to write figures for President Muhammadu Buhari in the February Presidential election.
“The party notes that Mr. Briyia’s governorship ambition on the platform of the APC, which he announced while still in the confines of his office as REC, amply exposed INEC as a partisan electoral umpire under the watch of Professor Yakubu Mahmud.
“The PDP states that the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari did not sanction Mr. Briyia, even after he brazenly announced his ambition right in INEC facility, betrays APC’s embedded interests in the commission, which manifested in the manipulation of processes related to the Presidential elections.
“The PDP invites Nigerians to note that INEC, in a recent statement, denied receiving any resignation letter from Mr. Briyia at the time he announced his governorship ambition.”
PDP also challenged Buhari to come out clean on the real reason he failed to sanction the Cross River REC in line with the law.
It also urged the President to speak out on allegations in the public space that his Presidency failed to sanction Briyia because of the role he allegedly played in favour of the APC in the Presidential election.
PDP, however, insisted that INEC must be sanitized, and called on the National Assembly to open a public hearing on the issue as well as effect amendments in the Electoral Act to check the appointment and retention of persons with political leanings as electoral officers as well as recommending stringent sanctions for infringements in that direction.
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