PDP Laments INEC’s Cumbersome Process In Issuing CTC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has come under fire from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for allegedly giving instructions meant to thwart the process of issuing Certified True Copies (CTC) of EC8A form.

Charles Aniagwu, the spokesperson for the PDP Presidential Campaign Committee made this claims at a news conference held in Asaba, Delta state on Friday.

Aniagwu claimed that before issuing the CTC for EC8A form, the INEC headquarters had instructed the Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC) in the states and the FCT to ensure comparison with its Result Viewing Portal (IRev) data.

He pleaded with INEC to act morally by letting the states, who functioned as the documents’ initial issuers, issue them without comparing them to the information from the IREV.

According to Aniagwu, the PDP requested the CTC of EC8A form to support its claims before the Presidential election tribunal.

He underlined that the party has questioned the validity of the IREV data, therefore the instruction from INEC to state RECs to compare with IREV figures would undermine the party’s stance.

He claimed that even though the presidential election was over, his party still felt the need to challenge the results in court because the party was not happy with how the poll was conducted.

He said, “We were able to get a court judgment asking INEC to avail us all relevant documents that will assist us in proving our case.

“We are, however, taken aback that INEC in an unsigned document sent to State Resident Electoral Commissioners directed them not to issue the form EC8A without comparing it with IREV records at the Commission’s headquarters.

“This directive is a departure from the usual procedure for the issuance of Certified True Copies of form EC8A which has to do with results from the states.

“The most important data here is the primary data which are domiciled with the RECs of states and INEC knows that the directive is not the right procedure hence they refused to sign the document”.

Aniagwu continued, “The IREV portal in this instance is secondary data because the primary data which is the form EC8A is domiciled with the RECs”.

“We cannot at this moment believe that what was uploaded in the IREV portal will be what transpired because of the delay in the upload of the data.

“Is INEC headquarters that is supposed to confirm from the states and not the other way round because the primary source of the form EC8A in the States.”