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| National Chairman of the PDP Prince Uche Secondus |
The Peoples Democratic Party has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to appoint external auditors to probe Activate Technologies Limited, a firm reportedly owned by the Niger-East senatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Mohammed Musa.
The firm was allegedly given a contract by INEC to print Permanent Voter Cards.
The National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, said this in a letter written to the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
The letter was instigated by a revelation by the INEC chairman that the company was indeed owned by the APC candidate.
Yakubu had, however, said the system was foolproof, adding that the integrity of the electoral process would not be compromised.
But in a letter he signed on Sunday, Secondus said the PDP was not satisfied with the explanation of the INEC boss.
The letter partly reads, “You stated that you were aware and have no issue with the fact that Mohammed S. Musa is both a senatorial candidate and owner of this company that produces highly sensitive election materials including card readers and PVCs.
“This goes against every international and Nigerian convention and law of nature – it is the equivalent of letting the fox into the hen coop or getting a student to answer their own homework.
“So, we have two supplementary questions: Why would you not terminate the contract of an individual who is participating in an election in which he is providing the means to count his own vote?
“Furthermore, in the spirit of transparency that you stated today that INEC works to embrace, why would you hire a company where the owner hides his ownership of the company through proxy shareholders?”
The PDP chairman said the party had been able to get a list of the 10 states where the PVCs supplied by Activate Technologies had been taken to.
He said the PDP would only be satisfied if a probe was conducted by either PriceWaterhouseCoopers or KPMG.
Secondus added that the firms must inspect some of the card readers supplied by Activate Technologies as some of them might have been compromised to accept cloned PVCs.
Secondus added, “Will INEC allow an independent verification that none of the potentially compromised card readers supplied by Activate Technologies Limited in the polling units in the 10 affected states have not been tampered with?
“We thank you for agreeing to this and hereby provide two ICT and audit firms who have the expertise to evaluate whether the card readers have been compromised. We would be grateful if you could confirm which one is acceptable to INEC and make provision for them to have unfettered access between February 18 and 21 as they are brought to the CBN offices in the following states to conduct tests on units selected at random.”
