Bwari (FCT)- Mr Anyaegbunam Okoye, the Chairman of Inter-Party Advisory Council, FCT Chapter, on Sunday urged political party-agents and voters to ensure proper monitoring of the 2015 polls, to check rigging.
Okoye gave the advice when he spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Bwari.
He said rigging is a ploy often used by party stakeholders to win election at all cost.
Okoye said that such tendency has negative affects the credibility of elections and democratic process.
“If you want to rig an election and you are a candidate of any political party, it is either that INEC officials cooperate with you or the security operatives,” he alleged.
Okoye, therefore, urged agents of political parties and voters to be resolute in monitoring events at the polls, so as to guard against rigging and other forms of election malpractice.
“Each political party ought to have an agent at every polling unit who is supposed to sign the result sheet at the end of the polls.
“If the agents sign the result as the law stipulates, it is not possible to rig; the problem had been that of agents collecting money to declare the highest bidder winner.
“Where there are 100 votes at the polling unit and you make it 1000, it should be challenged; if you go to tribunal and present evidence that election must be nullified.
“People must come out and vote and sacrifice their time to monitor events at the polls to be able to avoid election fraud, by reporting suspicious movements.
“But when we cast our vote and go, and we don’t even care about what is happening to our votes, it will create room for rigging,” he said.
Okoye, however, warned voters against indulging in violence, saying it is capable of jeopardising the nation’s nascent democracy. (NAN)
