Posted by By JACOB EDI, Abuja on
The Atiku Campaign Organisation on Monday slammed the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Maurice Iwu, describing as false, mischievous and condemnable the claims that the candidature of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on the platform of the Action Congress (AC) instead of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on whose platform he came to office in 1999, frustrated the conduct of a free and fair presidential election last April.
• You bungled April elections
The Atiku Campaign Organisation on Monday slammed the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Maurice Iwu, describing as false, mischievous and condemnable the claims that the candidature of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on the platform of the Action Congress (AC) instead of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on whose platform he came to office in 1999, frustrated the conduct of a free and fair presidential election last April.
In a statement, the organisation said: 'It is tragic that Iwu, who should bury his head in shame for conducting the worst election in the nation's history, still has the temerity to tell blatant lies.
'It is indeed, a national tragedy that a character like Iwu, who has brought Nigeria into global ridicule still finds the voice to tell such blatant lies."
While insisting that INEC, under Iwu, organized the worst elections in the country's history, including all the elections ranging from state and National Assembly to governorship elections, the group sought to know 'if Atiku was the problem that caused a flawed presidential election, what is the excuse for other failed elections?"
The campaign organisation also sought to know who Iwu would blame for the absence of election materials across the country during the elections, the failure of the INEC to display voters register and all the anomalies that characterised the elections.
The statement said it was unfortunate that the INEC boss would bother Nigerians with the blunder he called defence of the April polls.
It said: 'The candidature of Atiku was not a problem until Iwu abandoned his objective role as electoral umpire to deploy INEC in the service of Obasanjo's do-or-die politics of stopping Atiku from contesting the election.
'INEC had no role to play on the decision of a candidate on the choice of party platform. As we consistently told him then, Iwu should have concerned himself with organizing the election rather than playing politics with who had a right to contest or not.
'Immediately INEC dabbled into the politics of whether Atiku could contest or not, we told him clearly that he was compromising his office, but he was too sold out to Obasanjo to recall himself.
'Rather than Atiku's choice of party, which Iwu now alludes to, Iwu's pre-occupation then was the purported indictment of Atiku by Obasanjo and his eligibility to contest the election.
'As we consistently argued, the Supreme Court eventually confirmed that Obasanjo's illegal indictment cannot be used to stop him from contesting the election. At no time was Atiku's choice of party for the election at issue.
'In any case, it was the PDP, in its characteristic ‘Garrison Politics' that pushed Atiku and his teeming supporters out of the party. How could Atiku's forced exit, therefore, be his making of Iwu's historic failure?"
The campaign organisation said that Atiku was validly nominated by the AC and lamented that rather than respect the court's ruling on the former vice president's candidate, Iwu decided to play games.
'While he took this irrational stand, well meaning Nigerians, including top government officials advised that INEC should print the ballot paper with Atiku's name on it so that it would not be caught unawares by Supreme Court judgment. Iwu ignored this well-considered opinion because he would rather serve his obsessive master. This obstinacy of Iwu led to the destruction of about 60 million ballot papers meant for the presidential election. Iwu should account for the colossal waste of resources apart from standing trial for the crime of electoral malpractices," the campaign organisation noted.
'We sympathize with Iwu. He murdered sleep with his sheepish service to Obasanjo in the execution of do-or-die politics. It is rather tragic that no buck-passing or name calling can rehabilitate him in the annals of Nigerian electoral politics," the statement said.