APC COUNTERS JEGA’S BAN ON PHOTOGRAPHS

The All Progressives Congress, APC, on Thursday rejected an assertion made by Professor Attahiru Jega, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on Wednesday that a voter cannot photograph his ballot paper with a cell phone.
APC said it is “the clearest indication” that INEC was planning to rig Saturday’s election for the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.
Jega had during the stakeholders meeting held on Wednesday in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, said taking photograph of the ballot paper violates the Nigerian electoral law.
But APC said no law in the country’s constitution or INEC’s own electoral regulations prohibits such exercise.
“Jega therefore cannot single-handedly prevent citizens from protecting their votes, moreso when the rumour is rife that INEC is insisting on using “magical ballot papers” that transfer other parties’ votes to the PDP, as was suspected to have happened in Ekiti,” the party said in a statement.
The party said Jega must have inadvertently corroborated speculations that most of the ballot papers may have been scientifically wired to transfer opponents’ votes to the PDP.
“A discovery of this anomaly at the post election tribunal, with thousands of photographed ballot papers showing that the original voting exercise was different from that which INEC actually counted, will not only annihilate the commission’s reputation it will catastrophically damage the integrity of Jega himself.
“This is perhaps the only reason Jega is struggling to prevent APC supporters from photographing their ballot papers. There is no such legal provision in our law books. Jega on his own cannot create one,” APC said.
Source: PMNews