SAHARANEWS – The National chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, on Saturday admitted that candidate of the All Progressives Congress, for Niger East Senatorial District, Senator Mohammed Musa, was a registered contractor with the commission.
The INEC chairman made the disclosure at a stakeholders’ meeting held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, had in a statement hinted the nation that the Managing Director of Activate Technologies Limited, Mohammed Sani Musa, whose company supplied the machines used in printing the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), was the candidate of the APC for Niger East Senatorial district in the aborted Saturday’s election.
Atiku, in the statement, further argued that “given that Mr. Musa’s previous company, Act Technologies, had a contract to supply and install PVC card printers in the INEC Headquarters, it does beg the question why Mr Musa’s new company, Activate Technologies, was given a subsequent contract to print PVC cards itself?”
“Other investigations have revealed that an employee and Director of Activate Technologies and an APC member, Mr. Mohammed Keffi, was filmed at Abuja Airport Domestic Departure Lounge on December 29 opening an official INEC envelope and then handling multiple ballot forms which he was checking off against his mobile phone.
Atiku further noted that “while Sani Musa has the right to hold any public office in spite of his line of business, it is morally unjustifiable to allow a well-known supplier of sensitive INEC materials to partake in an election in which the key materials to be used for the poll were supplied by him.”
Asked by a former Aviation Minister, Osita Chidoka, who stood in for PDP national chairman, Uche Secondus for clarification, the INEC Chairman admitted that he was aware that the said contractor with the commission was a senatorial candidate of the APC.
But he, however, assured Nigerians that it would not affect the credibility of the electoral process.
He said: “Yes, I am aware. That company has been working with the commission since 2011. I assure you that we have a strict system. No electoral officer will be compromised. The integrity of the process is protected.”