Don’t violate Electoral Act on rallies, INEC warns politicians

INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega

The Independent National Electoral Commission has urged politicians not to flout the law guiding political campaigns.

 The commission was reacting to enquiries by The PUNCH on the legality of rallies being held by political parties, including the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress.

The PDP, on Saturday, held a rally in Sokoto, where it formally received a former governor of the state, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, who joined the party from the APC.

At the event, President Goodluck Jonathan said the party would hold rallies in Kano and Imo states.

The APC last week held a similar rally in Yola, the Adamawa State capital.

In an email to one of our correspondents, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, said that politicians should be true patriots instead of acting to the contrary.

He said, “INEC has indicated the timelines for electioneering in the notice it recently issued. The commission hopes that political actors will be law-abiding and would ensure that the game is played by set rules. That is a patriotic demand on all and one expects that political actors will be true patriots in deed.”

On its part, the PDP said the Sokoto rally and those that would be coming up later in the month were not being held out of fear.

It also denied that the rallies were in violation of extant electoral laws on campaigns.

The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, made these clarifications in an interview with one of   our correspondents  in Abuja on Sunday.

Metuh said  those equating the rallies to campaigns were not correct.

He reminded Nigerians that the APC had also held rallies to welcome those that defected from the PDP to the opposition party  in  Rivers and Kano states.

Metuh said, “What we are doing is to welcome those who are defecting to our party from other political parties.

“Don’t forget that the APC did that before. They did it in Rivers and some other states.

“Since we also have those who want to be liberated from the APC, it is incumbent on us to receive them properly into our midst and also tell them what the party have done for them in their states in particular and Nigeria in general.

“We are not campaigning as we are not giving our flags to anyone as our flag bearers. It will be wrong for us not to receive those who want to join us or ask them to sneak into the party that is loved by Nigerians.”

But the APC berated  President Goodluck Jonathan for saying that only the PDP could save Nigeria.

Jonathan had at the rally in Sokoto, said that PDP remained unshaken despite the defection of five governors to the APC

The APC, in its reaction, said that there was a serious disconnect between the President and Nigerians.

The Interim National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said this in a telephone interview with our one of correspondents in Abuja on Sunday.

 Source PUNCH.