THE Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation (PPCO) has called on the National Assembly to save the country from what it called imminent political crisis by immediately commencing the process of the removal of Mrs Amina Zakari, from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Addressing newsmen, on Friday, in Abuja, the Director of Media and Publicity Secretary of PPCO, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, disclosed the “the position of the organisation is predicated on the fact that it is clear to all that Amina Zakari’s uncle, President Buhari, having been rejected by Nigerians, is now using her as virus to compromise the independence of the commission, manipulate the electoral process and rig the presidential election for him.”
Ologbondiyan said: “The Buhari presidency has been using Amina Zakari to bear pressure on INEC even to the extent of brazenly foisting her as the collation officer for the presidential election to enable President Buhari announce himself as winner.
“The PPCO holds that a credible electoral commission must be completely impartial, transparent, totally independent and immune from external control by interested entities. These are qualities INEC can no longer lay claim to as long as Amina Zakari remains a member of the commission.
“By foisting Mrs Amina Zakari to lead the final process of the election, President Buhari is seeking a way to annex INEC, practically take over the collation of results and announce himself the winner.
“This is a clear invitation to anarchy and a huge political crisis capable of derailing our democracy because Nigerians, across the board, are already in vehement rejection of this self-succession plot and are now, more than ever before, ready to use every necessary means available and accessible to them in a democracy to protect our democratic process.”
He added: “As long as Amina Zakari remains in INEC, the commission cannot be trusted. It will interest Nigerians to know that following public outcry against her nomination, Amina Zakari’s agents, last night, surreptitiously attempted to compromise the media by sending secret messages to emails of editors with the view to water down and sway the direction of information on her provocative appointment to lead the collation of presidential election results.
“Also, we have been informed of how Mrs Zakari led other top INEC officials to a secret meeting with some top officials of the Buhari Campaign Organisation (BCO) in Abuja on ways to introduce the controversial incidence form under a new name and use such to manipulate the collation of results.
“We therefore urge Nigerians and lovers of democracy all over the world to unite in condemning this scheme by the Buhari presidency to use Amina Zakari to enmesh our election into unnecessary controversy and trigger a political crisis in our country, just because they have realised that President Buhari cannot win the presidential election.”
