From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of plotting to compromise electorate.
Spokesman of the coalition, Ikenga Ugochinyere, at a press briefing in Abuja, yesterday, said the alleged plot to sack chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, was still on.
He explained that the plot to compromise the electorate involves harvesting of names, account numbers, voters identification number (VIN) and bank verification number (BVN) of voters in a system known as “wire-wire.”
The CUPP spokesman said this is “on the understanding that money will be sent to each person by electronic means to purchase their votes.”
He alleged that so far bank details of the over 10 million voters has been harvested by agents of the ruling party across the country using different political pressure groups.
Ugochinyere, while charging well meaning Nigerians to stand in defence of the country’s democracy, urged security agencies to take actions against those accused of tempering with the voter register.
“Nigerians will be hurt if this election can be sold and bought like crayfish in the ordinary market. We call on the staff of banks to give us information anytime they see such questionable transactions of vote buying in their banks.
“We also call on the EFCC to be on the lookout for such. Any political party which desires to send money to agents should be compelled to send the bank an acknowledged copy of the official list of agents submitted to the INEC.
“This will help forestall any unreasonable claims that they are paying agents. It must also be noted that there is only one agent per polling unit for a political party; hence any claim that the data being harvested is those of party agents is dead on arrival.”
He added that there was still a plot to sack the INEC Chairman to frustrate the use of the BVAS machine and the cleaning up of the register.
“It is for this purpose that the Nigerian opposition and, indeed, all Nigerian citizens of goodwill have resolved that we shall resist and reject any form of the arrest of the INEC chairman when he returns to the country (he is currently outside the country). We shall also vehemently resist and reject every form of resignation from office by the INEC Chairman, either forced or otherwise, or any other form or method of removal from office.”