All Progressives Congress in Plateau State has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission of conniving with the Peoples Democratic Party to tamper with sensitive materials that will be used at the ongoing election petitions tribunal.
Director of Media, Publicity and Protocol Affairs to the Plateau State Governor-elect, Mr. Festus Fuanter, alleged, in an interview with our correspondent on Thursday that some sensitive electoral materials were being moved to the Government House in order to be tampered with and deny the party justice at the election tribunal.
He said among the documents to be manipulated were the accreditation registers, used during the election in three local government areas of Jos North, Mangu and Wase.
Fuanter said the idea was to replace the materials and to come up with certified true copies that would show a discrepancy between the card reader and the manual accreditation.
He said, “We have received reports that INEC is trying to connive with PDP to tamper with sensitive materials in view of the pending case at the tribunal and we are investigating to get to the bottom of the case.
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However INEC Assistant Director, Voter Education and Publicity in Plateau State, Mr. Osaretin Imahieyeorobo, said that there was no iota of truth in the allegation.
According to him, the materials the APC saw were CTCs given to the parties in dispute as directed by the tribunal.
Imahieyeorobo said, “You were in court when the tribunal ordered that the materials be made available to the parties that requested for them to enable them to file their cases at the tribunal. So INEC asked the party to make arrangements to have the CTCs as ordered by the court and what we are giving them are certified copies and not originals and so I don’t know where the allegation of destroying some documents and replacing them with others is coming from.”
PDP Organising Secretary, Mr. Mike Dachom, also denied the allegations.
He told our correspondent in an interview that PDP was ready to defend the case based on its submissions before the tribunal.
He wondered how PDP could collude with INEC in the tribunal when it could not do so during the elections.
