By Uche Amunike
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has been asked to conduct a forensic audit on the generated and appropriated figures of the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration, CVR, with immediate effect, in order to gain a clearer picture of the real position of things.
This demand was made in a joint Press statement issued during a Press Conference held, Monday, by the Forum of Progressive Political Parties, FPPP, led by the Osun state chairman of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Idowu Omidiji.
Speaking on behalf of his colleagues, Omidiji declared that Bello Adebayo of the Labour Party and Remi Ayanlade of the Young Progressives Party, YPP, had noted with serious concern, the geometric and outrageous figures emanating from the website of INEC on a weekly basis as the CVR is ongoing in Osun State.
This, he said, made it imperative to update and address the media while calling the attention of the INEC National Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu and his team to the scenario playing out in Osun State which is just one out of the 36 states in the country.
While positing that the outcome of the CVR exercise was totally suspicious and least expected, Omidiji expressed surprise that in both Anambra and Ekiti States where gubernatorial elections were to hold before the 26th of July 2022 election in Osun, the figures as seen from the INEC website shows that as at 26th July 2021, Anambra has 65,014 fresh eligible voters while Ekiti state whose election will come up in June 2022 has just registered 19,043 new and fresh voters.
His words: ‘Our own Osun State has miraculously registered 259,450 fresh voters. We dare say that there is no sufficient, logical, political or economic justification for such an outrageous figure.’
‘It is also public knowledge that the ongoing CVR for fresh voters is being conducted online via the INEC website using the availability of internet, is it not a miracle that a state like Osun which has one of the lowest and weakest internet penetrations, which is very far below that of Rivers, Kano, Abuja and Lagos states in terms of internet connectivity, usage and penetration has registered close to 300,000 persons in less than 30 days?’
‘We make bold to say that the Forum of Progressive Political Parties in Osun state is greatly worried by the continuing reflection of events as being displayed by INEC.’
The ADC chairman declared that it was disturbing and funny that the CVR figures revealed that the fresh voters in the entire highly politically inclined North West, North East, South South and South East geo-political zones put together were far below what Osun state alone has generated in the last 21 days.
‘This puts the integrity of the ongoing CVR exercise of INEC in question.’
‘We have been tutored and received briefings by an array of young ICT compliant gurus and engineers and we are convinced beyond reasonable doubts, going by the avalanche of evidences and available information at our disposal that the electronic server and few unscrupulous elements in INEC might have been compromised to fill an inexistent and unrealistic number from the backend of the INEC server’, he concluded.
