The All Progressives Congress said on Thursday that the usage of card readers by the Independent National Electoral Commission for the 2015 general election remained one of the best ways to ensure that the forthcoming poll was free, fair and credible.
National Chairman of the party, Chief John Oyegun, stated this in Abuja when he received the ECOWAS Fact Finding team to Nigeria led by former Ghanaian President, John Kuffour, in his office.
The APC chairman said that INEC had no excuse not to deploy the technology because some countries in West Africa with lesser population and human resources, were already using it.
He said, “We are hoping that INEC will do their best. Good as the chairman is, he does not know the reality of what is on ground under him.
“Our prayer as far as INEC is concerned is that they use card readers in the election so that we can be sure of cleaner process. It is a no go area and a must that card reader has to be used.
“The Peoples Democratic Party is doing everything within its power to convince the world that we are not ready for it. But if countries like Ghana, India and the rest of them are able to deploy this technology, I cannot see why we cannot use it in Nigeria”.
Mr. Oyegun also said there should be no militarization of the electoral process as was experienced during the governorship poll in Ekiti and Osun states.
He said, “It was alright they tried it in Ekiti. But in Osun State, we had to convince them that if they try what they did in Ekiti, then, it will be a mutually destructive process.
“I think that at the very last minute, they tried to announce some fake results but at that time, we had gotten the results of every process and they knew that if they did anything contrary, they would have plunged that state into total anarchy.
“Our prayer is that they don’t try to replicate that at the national level”.
He told the visitors to impress it upon the ruling PDP to be prepared to accept the result of the 2015 elections, saying “when a party that has been in power for a long time see defeat in February, how are they likely to react?”
APC PLS INSIST ON THE CARD READER