The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has accused election monitors of trading their INEC’s accreditation slots with rich men and chairmen of some political parties so that party members could pose as election observers during polls.
Oshiomhole said this in Abuja on Wednesday when the APC National Working Committee (NWC) received the delegation of International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI) led by former Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs, Amb. Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
The delegation also includes John Tomaszewski, IRI Regional Director for Africa; Sentell Barnes, Resident Program Director, IRI-Nigeria; Jessica Findley, Resident Program Officer, IRI-Nigeria; Raymond Esebagbon, Deputy Country Director, NDI-Nigeria; and Sunday Alao, Program Officer, IRI-Nigeria.
He drew the attention of the delegation to those he called ‘professional civil society groups’ being funded sometimes by political parties and rich men to express the views of their political pay masters.
Oshiomhole said the way INEC did accreditation of election monitors required searchlight as it had become a huge fraud.
The APC national chairman said those granted accreditation traded the slots given to them with chairmen of political parties so that party members could pose as election monitors.
Responding, the leader of the delegation, Amb. Thomas-Greenfield, said a lot of concerns were raised about neutrality of INEC and security agencies.
He said they were happy over the peace accord by all political parties during a meeting with the National Peace Council ( NPC), stating that there will additional accord to be signed calling on all parties to take any disagreement to the court once the result of the election is announced.
He said the team had earlier met with the President of the Appeal Court on some of the challenges she might face.
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