Udora Orizu in Abuja
The chairmen of 42 political parties have threatened to boycott or stage a walkout during the signing of the final peace accord ceremony billed to be witnessed by a former President of the United States of America, Bill Clinton on Wednesday, unless the National Peace Committee includes conditions for free, fair and credible elections in the Accord.
These parties made their position known in a press statement signed and issued by the Chairman, Action Peoples Party, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere; Chairman, Alliance National Party, Asiwaju Shittu; Chairman,
Peoples Coalition Party, Anthony Harmattan, and Chairman, Action Alliance (AA), Kenneth Udeze, for themselves and on behalf of the 42 concerned political parties.
They demanded that INEC and security agencies must not exclude opposition parties’ agents from collation venues from polling units, to the final collation level.
According to the political parties, “It must be included in the accord that the security agencies should not arrest leaders of the opposition parties few hours to election as was done in Osun State guber election. It will be a breach of the accord for any security agencies to arrest agents of opposition parties or stop them from accessing the venue of election and collation.”
The parties, as part of their demand, are insisting that accreditation must be done with party agents physically monitoring the identification of the voters.
“INEC should be allowed by security agencies to do their work without interference in accordance with the Electoral Act. No result shall leave the polling unit without being announced and pasted on the wall in accordance with the Electoral Act,” they said.
The political parties are also demanding that politically-motivated police postings should be discontinued and reversed like the case of the posting of the security aide of APC chieftain, Bola Tinubu as Kwara State Commissioner of Police.
“INEC must ensure unrestricted access to agents of parties fielding candidates to the situation room and pilot phase of e-collation at all levels of collation up to National Headquarters to ensure transparency,” they added.
