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ARC->Election News
The Conference of Nigerian Registered Political Parties (CNPP), which comprises a loose coalition of Parties (excluding the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)), on Tuesday 15 April rejected some of the election results announced by the Independent National Election Commission (INEC). Subsequently, the CNPP asked that the elections be cancelled and held again.
Spokesman of the Conference, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.), who is also the Presidential candidate for the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), said on Wednesday 16 April that the victorious PDP was “leading the country down the alley of chaos and destruction” in the manner by which it won the election.
In addition to rejecting the alleged irregularities of the April 12 elections, the Conference warned that a repeat of such acts of “fraud” would lead to unpleasant consequences.
General Buhari claimed that the Parties were prepared to live with the inadequate preparations for the elections, but only in the hope that the INEC would conduct free and fair polls. Instead, he said, the National Assembly elections followed typical patterns of the past, which ultimately produced an election that was neither credible nor complied with international standards.
Citing what he depicted as specific examples of wrongdoing, General Buhari charged that the elections were marred by non-conduct of elections in some centres, seizure of ballot boxes by party thugs, manipulation of election results, announcement of inaccurate figures, and the exploitation of law enforcement officers to perpetrate disorder.
To solve these alleged anomalies, the CNPP demanded that the Option A4 system be adopted for subsequent elections. The Option A4 system involves the arrangement of voters into queues that form behind the ballot boxes that represent the candidates whom they support. To make this feasible, the Conference called on the National Assembly to immediately reconvene to consider this option.
With regard to the forthcoming April 19 elections, the Conference also demanded that INEC ascertain the number of registered voters at each station, ensure compliance with the law on thumb-printing, disallow military and paramilitary forces from playing an organisational role, give party agents signed results at the polling booths, and provide two different ballot boxes for the Presidential and the Governorship elections in each polling booth.
General Buhari went on to condemn the President’s post-election broadcast, which described the exercise as free and fair. According to the retired General, Saturday’s elections resulted in national protests, some of which bordered on violence.
The ANPP Presidential candidate went further to call on the National Assembly to pass a resolution that prevented the President from unconstitutionally using the military to coordinate elections, and asked the army and police to refuse to be used in this manner.
He also requested that international observers do more than simply watch as people queued up to cast their votes, and challenged them to visit collation and counting centres where, in his opinion, the rampant manipulation of votes were taking place.
In its brief response to the CNPP, the INEC advised aggrieved individuals or Political Parties to render their grievances with Electoral Panels. The Commission drew attention to the Electoral Guidelines that recognise the decisions of the Returning Officers on each election to be final. Such decisions are only subject to review by an Election Tribunal in a petition filed within 30 days of the said election.
The President of Nigeria’s Court of Appeal had set up judicial Panels to deal with petitions arising from the 2003 general elections. Each of the 36 states, as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has a Panel of five whose membership is drawn from various state High Court Judges and Chief Magistrates.
© Copyright 2005 nigeriafirst.org
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