Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, has said that the energy with which the All Progressives Congress (APC) is advocating for the use of card reader in the coming elections, shows “another sinister motive of the party to cause confusion during and after the election.”
Governor Fayose, who stated this in a statement he made available to journalists on Thursday, alleged that “APC had penchant for promotion of confusion and division in Nigeria for political gain even at the expense of the wellbeing and unity of the country.
In the statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Idowu Adelusi, he said “as much as the usage of the card reader is noble, the preparation of the INEC for it has been very poor,” and alleged that “it is believed to be a conspiracy between the electoral body and the APC if the agitation of the APC on the card reader is anything to rely upon.”
Fayose claimed that “INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, had told Nigerians that the card reader’s battery could go flat after at most five hours, which means that unless there is alternative power supply, the machine will be rendered useless after the battery has gone flat.”
He said: “The question now is: “will the INEC provide power generators in each of the poling units in the whole country so that by the time the battery is down the electoral officers could switch to the alternative power?”
In a related development, Governor Fayose has met with relevant stakeholders in Ekiti State ahead of the proposed visit of the wife of the president to the state, Mrs Patience Jonathan, on March 16.
He said “Ekiti is going to mobilise and we are going to receive the wife of the president rousingly. We are going to show the whole world that we are still the same family in PDP.”
“We are going to support her and her husband and we are known to have been in the forefront of the support for President Goodluck Jonathan. I have no apologies for that.”
Meanwhile, wife of the governor, Mrs Feyisetan Fayose, has expressed support for her husband in his campaign strategy for the re-election bid of President Goodluck Jonathan and the victory of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the coming general election.
She said in a statement by her media aide, Mrs Tolulope Ayo-Ajayi, that “some people are only having misconception about her husband’s style of hitting the nail on the head on issues.”
According to her, “Governor Ayo Fayose does not know how to shy from saying the truth no matter the circumstance,” saying “I am fully in support of my husband in his campaign for President Goodluck Jonathan to win the March 28 presidential election.
“He is a man not given to chasing shadows, if he is not convinced of a particular cause, he will not go for it. For the avoidance of doubt, my husband has my support on this project of getting the president re-elected for a second term. The question of whether I am supporting him or not do not arise.”