2019: PDP, INEC trade tackles over ban of mobile phones

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, Tuesday, faulted the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ban the use of smartphones at polling booths during Saturday’s governorship election in Osun State.

According to Secondus, INEC was already perfecting rigging formula in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress.

The commission however denied that it banned mobile phones around polling centres but the moment a voter enters the voting cubicle to cast his vote.

According to the INEC, the challenge of buying is known to Nigerians, necessitating the ban of mobile phones at the polling booth.

Secondus, who spoke during an interactive session with PDP leaders in Bayelsa State on Tuesday, called on Nigerians to rise up to frustrate all the rigging strategies being perfected between INEC and the APC.

In a statement issued by Media Aide of the PDP chairman, Mr. Ike Abonyi, Secondud said INEC’s decision on the use of smartphone was a deliberate plan to kill means of gathering evidence against their rigging arrangements which he said was being fine-tuned but already tested in Ekiti and Osun States.

According to him, the APC government is killing Nigerians.

“They have borrowed over N11 trillion yet there is nothing to show, hunger is raving the land and people are dying daily across the country.

“Critical stakeholders and the international community are worried at the debt profile of this administration which has risen to such astronomical level amidst huge corruption in the system.

“I crave your indulgence to stand up against all the evil plots of the APC by collecting your PVC and using it judiciously to vote them out in all elections in 2019.

“The ban on the use of smartphones by INEC in Osun is because they want to stop people from capturing their evil plans. We will resist it”, Secondus said.

However, INEC, in a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to its Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, in reaction the allegation, said it only banned the use of phones inside the voting cubicle in a bid to curb the menace of vote buying and selling.

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“In consultation with other stakeholders, the Commission came up with new measures to solve the problem, one of which is to disallow the use of smart phones and other electronic devices in the voting cubicles on election day.

“In other words, INEC is not banning phones around the polling unit area, but the ban takes effect from the moment a prospective voter collects his or her ballot paper and enters into voting cubicle to thumb print and thereafter drop the folded ballot paper into the ballot box.

“After that, the voter can have access to his or her phone”, Oyekanmi said.

Oyekanmi also called on Nigerians to disregard any attempt by any individual or group to politicise what was purely a preventive measures.

 

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