Nigerians elect President, NASS members today; Buhari to opposition: Your allegations of Islamization wicked, deceptive, ungodly; FG, APC have declared war on PDP, its PDP leaders – Secondus, says Peace accord dead

By Emmanuel Oloniruha/Ismaila Chafe

Abuja, Feb. 23, 2019

Nigerians today, Saturday, February 23, 2019, go to the poll to elect their president and 469 members of the National Assembly (NASS).

This is coming a week after the exercise was rescheduled by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) early Saturday (Feb. 16) morning.

While the electoral umpire would conduct only the presidential and NASS election this Saturday, the poll for the governorship and State Houses of Assembly as well as the Area Council election for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) would hold on March 9.

The election will hold at 119,973 polling units across the country, while collation of results will take place in 8,809 Registration Areas or Wards, 774 Local Government Areas, 36 States and the FCT.

The polling units are expected to open by 8 a.m. and close by 2 p.m. with the last person on the line allowed to vote.

INEC had said that the use of Smart Card Readers and Permanent Voter Cards were compulsory for the elections.

The major presidential contenders are incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former vice president Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Others include Prof. Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress (AAC), Felix Osakwe of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), and Christopher Okotie of Fresh Party.

For the National Assembly elections, a total of 1,904 are vying for 109 Senatorial seats, while 4,680 candidates are competing for the 360 seats in the House of Representatives.

Specifically, Nigeria’s NASS is made up of 109 members of the Senate or Red Chamber and 360 members of the House of Representatives or Green Chamber.

The total number of registered voters in the country is 84,004,084, with 44,405,439 (52.86 per cent) as male, and 39,598,645 (47.14 per cent) as female.

Of the 84,004,084 registered voters nationwide, 72,775,502 , representing 86.63 per cent who have collected Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) are eligible to participate in the elections, as 11,228,582 or 13. 7 per cent of the printed PVCs are yet to be uncollected.

The breakdown of the number of collected PVCs per state shows that Lagos with the highest number of registered voters of 6,750,291, recorded 5,531,389 collected PVCs, and 1,038,902 uncollected PVCs; followed by Kano with 4,696,747 collected PVCs and 761,000 uncollected cards out of the 5,457,747 registered voters in the state.

Third on the list was Kaduna state with 3,648,831 collected and 283,661 uncollected cards from 5,457,747 registered voters, while Katsina State with 3,230,230 registered voters followed with 3,187,988 collected PVC and 42,242 uncollected cards.

The statistics also revealed Ekiti state with 909,996 registered voters to have the least number of collected PVCs which is 666,591, and 243,376 uncollected cards; followed by Bayelsa with 769,509 collected cards and 153,673 uncollected PVCs out of the 923,182 total registered voters in the state.

Percentage of collected PVCs to registered voters per state indicates that Kastina has the highest percentage of 98.69 collected PVCs, followed by Taraba with 97.30 percentage, Gombe 95.76 and Kebbi 95.13 percentage of collected PVCs.

The states with the least percentage of collected PVCs compared to registered voters were Ogun with 71.36 per cent, Ekiti with 73.25 per cent and followed by Oyo with 74.17 per cent.

A breakdown of the registered voters by regions shows that the South-South has 12,841,279 or 15.29 per cent of the 84,004,084 total number of registered voters nationally.

The North Central has 13,366,070 voters, representing 15.91 per cent; South-East 10,057,130 registered voters or 11.91 per cent, and South-West 16,292,212 or 19.39 per cent of the total number of voters.

The North-West has 20,158,100 voters, representing 24 per cent of the registered voters, while the North-East has 11,289, 293 or 13.44 per cent of the total registered voters.

Three ballot boxes will be provided for the national election, the box with red cover for presidential, black cover for Senatorial and green cover ballot box for the House of Representatives.

Eligible voters are advised to visit gotomypu.ng to obtain location of   their polling units.

Meanwhile, President Buhari has said that allegations that his administration has an agenda to impose Islam on Nigeria is wicked, dangerous, deceptive and ungodly.

The president, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media sand Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, in Abuja on Friday, noted that the false allegations were coming less than 24 hours ahead of the Presidential and National Assembly elections.

He stated that the objective of the allegations was to stoke up religious division to score cheap political goals.

The statement said: “It has come to the notice of President Muhammadu Buhari, ahead of the forthcoming elections, that some unscrupulous Nigerians are again falsely and wickedly claiming that the administration has an agenda to impose Islam on Nigeria.

“The objective is clearly to stoke up religious division for political gains. Some of these same persons made these devious and fabricated claims ahead of the 2015 election. They failed woefully.

“The President strongly affirms the oath he took before the Nigerian people to faithfully defend the Constitution of Nigeria.

“That Constitution guarantees freedom of worship for every Nigerian. It is this guarantee that enables all Nigerians to practise their faiths or religion without hindrance.’’

President Buhari further affirmed his commitment to freedom of religion and worship for all Nigerians, and that under no circumstance would any religion or faith be imposed on any Nigerian.

“It is dangerous, deceptive and ungodly to play politics with religion,’’ he added.

 

However, the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Prince Uche Secondus has said that the peace accord signed by the two frontline Presidential candidates, Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP is virtually dead.

Prince Secondus said that all the terms of the agreement for peace have been broken by the ruling APC who has deployed the military and Police operatives to arrest and detain PDP. leaders across the country.

The National Chairman said that the party expects the Peace Committee and the international community to note the declaration of war on PDP leaders across the country by over zealous security operatives specially raised for this purpose as they operate in violation of the peace accord.

The National Chairman said that the APC and President Buhari are not disposed for the peace as they have flagrantly violated the terms of the agreement.

Prince Secondus said in a statement from his media office that reports reaching him from Kwara, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Kano Kaduna and other states show that PDP leaders are being harassed with arrest and detention by security operatives on flimsy reasons.

He noted that while APC is using military and Police personnel to chase PDP leaders across the country, they continue to give protection to APC leaders as they ferry money and election materials to various locations.

“Private jets belonging to APC leader in Lagos have been stationed at the airports protected by government operatives as money is being moved from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to states.

The PDP boss said that the General Abdulsalmi Abubakar led Peace Committee should take copious notice of all the happenings and note that APC and President Buhari are not disposed to any peace accord.

Prince Secondus said that all the ingredients of peace have been disregarded by the APC operatives who have decided to even run foul of the Electoral Act in their desperation to cling on to power even when it is obvious that Nigerians have turned their backs on them.