SENATORS of the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, yesterday, alleged that there were fresh plans by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP-led Federal Government to scuttled the rescheduled elections, slated for March 28 and April 14, this year.

They alleged that the government was working in connivance with the leadership of the Senate to ensure that card readers and Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, were not applied in the conduct of the forth coming elections, vowing that they will do everything within their power to frustrate the move.

The senators, who also condemned the recent postponement of the polls by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, warned against any further shift just as they said any such action could precipitate unpleasant consequence that could be similar to Somalia.

At a press conference in Abuja, the opposition senators, led by the Minority Leader of the Senator, George Akume, said the president manipulated the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, through the National Security Adviser and the service chiefs to shift the elections.

The senators, who hurriedly convened the press conference, to react to the summon given to the INEC chairman, Atttahiru Jega, to appear before the Senate today, said part of the plan by the government was to connive with the PDP-led Senate leadership to direct the INEC chairman not to apply the card readers and the PVCs in the conduct of the polls.

They described the action of the president as treasonable just as they accused the president of working towards enthroning either Interim Government or military leadership through coup.

The senators accused President Goodluck Jonathan of orchestrating all the necessary undemocratic moves in order to remain in power, warning that he must do what they called the right thing to avoid “unpleasant consequence.”

“There is no country in the world whose leader can sit down and do what we are doing here, to undermine our democracy. That is tantamount to treason. We have nothing like Interim Government in our constitution and of course, there is nothing like coup in our constitution and therefore, we must do the right thing.

“The president himself, has sworn to protect this country and therefore, where he is going wrong, he must be corrected. Elections must be held as rescheduled, it is important that INEC must do this in order to avoid unpleasant consequences.

“Nigeria is a huge and complex society, culturally, structurally, and all hands must be on deck to avoid the Somalia experience,” they warned.

Senator Akume said the use of card readers will add value to the conduct of the elections.
“We are talking about free and fair elections.

Time has passed when people carry ballot boxes and papers to their respective rooms, thumb-print and the following days, we have senators, we have members of the House of Representatives, we have governors and we have president.