Some desperate politicians are conniving with the leadership of their political parties and some member of Staff of Independent National Electoral Services INEC to swap names of candidates submitted for INEC.
A reliable source that pleaded anonymity informed that politicians from the contentious states are the ones mostly seen at the INEC office buying their ways into illegality in obvious contravention of timetable released by the electoral body.
The source further informed that it was unclear if the INEC leadership was aware of the ongoing name changing. Although, the source informed that the name changing has been ongoing for some days now, but only became more pronounced on Monday.
Meanwhile, the ongoing name changing is not same as the official substitution of names by registered political parties. The source said, ” What is ongoing at the ICT Centre of INEC is a clear illegality by desperate politicians in collusion with the leadership of their political parties. The deadline given by INEC for official submission of names by all the political parties had since elapsed and any other thing to the contrary at this time is a clear act of illegality “. A source disclosed that some incumbent members of the National Assembly are still laying siege in the Aso Drive residence of the chairman of one of the major political parties to put pressure on him to sign new CF002 forms to facilitate the illegal substitution of names.
However, candidates whose names have been officially submitted to INEC by their political parties have called on the leadership of electoral umpire not to allow anything that will tamper with official lists submitted to the Commission at the close of nomination on 18th October 2018.
A House of Representatives candidate from Imo State has called on INEC Chairman to immediately investigate the allegation of name swapping and not hesitate to severely sanction any of its staff that is involved in the ignoble act that is capable of denting the integrity of the electoral body.
