A former vice president and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, on Tuesday raised alarm over alleged plans to slow down car readers in his stronghold regions.
Mr Atiku raised the alarm at the party’s emergency National Executive Committee meeting in Abuja.
The meeting was called to review the postponement of the presidential and National Assembly elections from February 16 to February 23, by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
According to the candidate, some people were trained in China and are equipped with a gadgets that look like mobile phones.
He said the plan is to slow the card readers in North Central, South South and South East, but to fasttrack the processing of card readers in the North West and North East.
“We have just discovered that the APC have hired many of their operatives and have taken them to China to be trained, and they have been so trained, and they are back, and they are equipped with devices that are meant to slow or fasten our card readers,” Mr Atiku said.
“So, if you are in the South-South, South-East and North-Central, you are likely to get your card readers to be slowed by those APC operatives. We have seen the machines; we have interviewed some of those who have gone on this training, and we have passed that information to the campaign council to pass to you.
“But if you are from the North-West or North-East the tendency is that they will use these machines to fast-track the readings of your card readers, so that many of their supporters can vote while disenfranchising the other three zones.
“I thought you should know that we have supplied the information to the campaign council, and you will even see the copy of the machine which each and everyone of those operatives is to hold. It is like a telephone but that is its job. I felt I should let you know, and you should be guided accordingly.”
