Barely four days to the presidential election, the Director of Election Planning and Monitoring Directorate of the All Progressives Congress, Presidential Campaign Council, Raji Babajide Fashola has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to respect a court order barring Chairman of the Lagos Parks and Garages, Musliu Akinsanya, popularly known as MC Oluomo, from carrying out a contract to distribute election materials in Lagos.
Fashola who is also the minister of Works in a briefing with journalists in Abuja, Tuesday also asked INEC to publish the authentic and final list of voters in the coming elections.
Daily Champion had reported that Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court, Lagos, barred the INEC from engaging the services of Chairman of the Lagos Parks and Garages, Musliu Akinsanya, popularly known as MC Oluomo, to distribute election materials in Lagos.
Aneke made the order following a suit instituted by the Labour Party against INEC, citing possible compromise if Oluomo’s organisation is made to distribute election materials. Oluomo is known to be a close associate of the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
But Fashola said, “I think that by now, from my own public service records, where I stand on rule of law is no longer a matter for debate. I have been a public servant for 21 years and it is not what I say now that matters or what I do. It is the consistency of my conduct. I see that some sections of the media have tried to suggest that I was inviting certain authority to act in defiance in the court order.
“For me, there is no choice between the rule of law and my life. My life really means nothing if it is not live with the rule of law, that is what protect all of us. So, anybody who is faced with an order of court, whether it be INEC, whether it be anybody is bound to comply. Whether you like the court order or not, if you don’t like the court order, the rule has been set down from centuries ago that you must go back to the same court to say I am challenging this order. The person to whom the order is made should simply comply. There is no choice, it is the rule of law or nothing.”
Fashola said that the big issue now is that with just a few hours to the elections, I think it is time for the regulatory body, INEC to publish the final list of voters accredited for the election.
“We are in the homestretch of the election and we think it is important now that INEC, the regulator to let us know – all the parties and the nation, to let us know how many people actually collected Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).
“I think it is very important for the credibility of the results and the credibility of the elections. We have been acquainted with how many people registered, but we don’t have the numbers of how many people collected PVCs and that is a very important ask.
“And I think I speak the minds of all the parties by saying. How many people collected PVCs, the breakdown of the PVCs collection per state and per local government and to every unit of electoral activity that INEC can provide that information. We think it is a very important piece of information that will help INEC reinforce the credibility of the exercise that it is undertaking.
“Other than that we are busy doing what we do best – preparing, planning. Our candidate is also campaigning in Lagos at this moment. Other teams are working on details of the last few hours of the election. We remain very optimistic that we will be victorious in this contest.”
