Okechukwu:

Chief Osita Okechukwu, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has urged the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to refrain from shopping for excuses ahead of its impending defeat at the presidential election.

Okechukwu said this on Friday in an interview with newsmen in Enugu, while reacting to PDP’s reaction to the appointment of Amina Zakari as the head of the Presidential Election Collation Center.

He advised PDP and its members to purge themselves of unnecessary propaganda and concentrate their energies on issue-based campaign.

He said: “One is constrained to advice PDP to leave propaganda, stop shopping for excuses and concentrate more on real issue-based campaign.

“The truth of the matter is that the Card Reader, one of the greatest antidotes to rigging, is impeccable.

“There is no way Amina Zakari can manipulate the Card Reader. How can she alter or stop the results from Enugu, Ekiti, Bayelsa or even Jigawa or any other state for that matter?

“I laughed when I saw my friend Kola, the PDP spokesman, banging the table that Amina will manipulate the results. How?

“Is she going to be the Returning Officer? Are PDP agents going to sleep? Is there fear that they will be compromised by Amina?

“My understanding is that Amina’s role is more administrative than electoral result management, pure and simple.

“My submission is that PDP is shopping for excuses to cover its impending failure in the presidential election.

Okechukwu, who is the Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), further spoke on why he predicted that PDP would lose the presidential election to APC.

According to him, the day former Vice President Atiku Abubakar emerged as PDP’s presidential flag bearer, APC members celebrated.

He said: “We could have been worried if Gov. Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto had won the party’s presidential ticket.”

“Atiku didn’t present any major choice-wall to block Buhari. Even those who ordinarily don’t want Buhari cannot sincerely take Atiku as an alternative.”

Okechukwu also spoke on the benefit of the Card Reader and why President Muhammadu Buhari declined his assent to the Electoral Law Amendment Bill.

He said, “President Buhari was a fan and beneficiary of the Card Reader and was even the one who reminded the National Assembly of the omission of the Card Reader in the bill.’’

He said that the Card Reader process, which usually starts with accreditation, was capable of plugging up to 98 per cent of the traditional method of rigging.

He expressed concern over the new trend of election rigging by politicians through vote-buying.

He said, “Vote-buying is now the main vice of our electoral process, not ballot box snatching or other rigging methods.’’