The South-West Presidential Contact Committee Group of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has called for the removal of Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, for what they described as gross dereliction of duty and deliberate partisan complicity.
In a communique issued at the end of its meeting in Lagos, the committee also described the intervention of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in the current national challenges as distorted, unstatesmanly, too personalised and provocative.
The communique signed by Olabode George, Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe, Maj.-Gen. Tajudeen Olanrewaju, Gbenga Daniel, Ebenezer Babatope and others, said it met and deliberated exhaustively on the state of the nation and especially on the recent pronouncements of former President Obasanjo and therefore resolved as follows:
“President Goodluck Jonathan deserves the support of all well-meaning Nigerians in the arduous challenges of nation building and that it is cruel and unforgiving to insinuate that the rescheduling of the election date was done to favour the Peoples Democratic Party.
“From all verifiable indices, the Independent National Electoral Commission was grossly unprepared to carry out a free and fair election as the published collection of the Permanent Voter’s Cards was deliberately skewed in favour of the North.
“The intervention of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in the current national challenges is distorted, unstatesmanly, too personalised and provocative. Former President Obasanjo cannot and must not assume the role of the Nigerian overlord with infallible wisdom.
“Former President Obasanjo has descended into the bitter fray of a common partisan actor without the distinction and dignity of a rallying unifying leader.
“Former President Obasanjo has been very inciting, precipitous and violent in his utterances and, therefore likely to provoke untoward events in this nation.
“We condemn vigorously with all sense of patriotic candour any attempt by former President Obasanjo or anybody else, to provoke the collapse or vitiation of our democracy.
“For emphasis, we restate that the rescheduling of the election date is a patriotic and legitimate decision which will prevent the disenfranchisation of about 34 per cent of Nigerian citizens.
“In the light of the deliberate, overt and tendentious policies of Professor Attahiru Jega pertaining to his partisan gestures, nuances, conflicting protestations and most especially his overwhelming partiality in the distribution of the Permanent Voter Cards to the detriment and marginalisation of about 16 million eligible voters of South-West, we, the South-West Presidential Contact Committee Group, hereby appropriately resolves that Professor Attahiru Jega, having failed decisively in his appointed role of a neutral, non-partisan electoral umpire, should hereby be removed forthwith for gross dereliction of duty and deliberate partisan complicity.