Northern socio-political organization, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has reminded the National Coordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Chief Gani Adams that Nigeria, like other nations in the world has come of age in the way it should conduct elections, saying that his call for the sacking of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor. Attahiru Jega is of no substance.
The OPC leaderhad called for the sacking of the INEC boss on the basis of the distribution of the Permanent Voter Cards, introduction of card reader and the creation of 30,000 polling units, which he claimed favoured the North.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Muhammadu Ibrahim, in Kaduna today, the ACF described Adams utterance as laughable and pedestrian, adding that he lacked the understanding of the Nigerian Constitution and the electoral law.
According to the forum, Adams has clearly shown that he is ignorant of digital age, where transparency is the hallmarks of free, fair and credible elections.
ACF said that the utterances of the OPC leader were not only parochial but one that portrayed him as seeking political relevance, saying: “It is not the tradition of the Arewa Consultative Forum to respond to such unguarded and misinformed statement by leaders of socio-cultural groups or any individual for that matter on national issues.
“However, we find it necessary to respond to Chief Adams false claim that the creation of additional 30,000 polling units was fraudulently done by INEC to favour the North.
“In fact, based on scientific and statistical analysis of the INEC data, the North was actually shortchanged.
“Nigeria with a total registered voter figure of 70,383,427 in 2011 and when divided by the proposed INEC 150,000 polling units across the country, every polling units in any state should have 469 voters per unit to make it easier for voters to cast their votes.”
ACF said that it was as a result of the hue and cry over the additional units from southern leaders that forced INEC to create the 30,000 units, adding that the creation of the units would not change the number of registered voters, calling on leaders at all levels to guard their utterances, especially on issues they were not properly informed.
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