The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has raised the alarm over alleged plots to compromise the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) voters register.
Spokesman for the coalition who addressed the media in Abuja yesterday revealed that the plots had been perfected in 21 states under the leadership of governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in favour of the party.
He said the vigilance team of CUPP discovered the suit at Owerri Federal High Court where it was filed since the August 24, 2022.
He displayed extracts of the national voters register which it claimed were part of at least ten million fake registrations done by one of the political parties.
“The names were sourced from both within and outside Nigeria including some African countries such as Ghana, Cameroon, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Togo, Guinea, Gambia and countries outside Africa including Jamaica, Brazil and New Zealand,” he alleged.
He also alleged that alleged that the implementation of the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) in the general elections of 2023 was allegedly being challenged in secret.
Ugochinyere questioned the usage of passport photographs of long dead persons, names, gender and age of thousands of registered voters on copies of the register shown to camera.
He also presented instances where pictures of male registered voters carried names of female voters and vice-versa.
He linked the development to compromised staff of the INEC in Imo State and urged the commission to fish them out before the elections.
“Significant among the discoveries in the register is the fact that the majority of the foreign names were all born in 1983 despite whether their photographs showed they were old or young.
“Many people were also shown to have been born between 1900 and 1914 yet their photographs were those of young people.
“Equally, many male photos had their gender written as female and vice versa,” he said.
He said the intelligence CUPP intercepted which led to the discovery of the suit filed seeking to nullify the BVAS and exposure of the massive compromise in the voters register “cannot be wrong now that the third leg of the plot is to sack the INEC Chairman through a suspension as the plotters know they cannot get the required numbers from the National Assembly for an outright sack.
“We call on international partners, local and international observer groups, civil society and the general public to help it and protect democracy as the success of any of these plots will erode the integrity and credibility of the electoral process and deny Nigerians the sovereign right to freely choose their leaders,” he said.
The CUPP spokesman further alleged that the “chairman of INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, is under pressure to announce a change to the commission’s hard stance on the compulsory use of the BVAS machine for accreditation or get sacked as chairman of the commission.”
He added: “The third leg of the plot is to sack the national chairman through a suspension as the plotters know they cannot get the required numbers from the National Assembly for an outright sack,” he added.
Ugochinyere said the success of any of these plots will erode the integrity and credibility of the electoral process and deny Nigerians the sovereign right to freely choose their leaders.”
