The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday explained why it urged President Muhammadu Buhari to withhold assent to the 2018 Electoral Amendment Bill for the fourth time.
The National Chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole made the position of the party known on Thursday in Abuja when the party’s National Working Committee, NWC, received a joint pre-election assessment delegation of the International Republican Institute, IRI, and National Democratic Institute, NDI.
“You raised the issue which the President spoke to about the hurried attempt to amend the Electoral Act. The issue is, what are the key issues in the Electoral Act? Now, you digitize the entire process. That has its benefits but it also has huge challenges.
“It now depends on the good heart of those technicians in the control room where the ICT is operated and given the level of illiteracy in the country, given the challenge of unstable power supply in the country, to digitize everything raises issues that cannot just be dismissed.
“The laws as they are empower INEC to use card readers. The Electoral Act empowers the electoral body to make subsidiary rules that have the force of law. A number of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governors, including Rivers State, Akwa Ibom State, if you look at the results for 2015 election, they did not use this card reader. I think that is where the issue came from.
“The Supreme Court tried to show their own bias in favour of the PDP; the Supreme Court held that yes, INEC rules said use card readers but because it is not in the law, it is not necessarily binding. Our point is that, it is not right even internationally, to change rules of election on the eve of the election.”
