Osun 2014: APC Claims Over 500,000 Voters Card Have Been Cloned

The 2014 gubernatorial election in Osun state is just days away. Nigeria’s leading opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has through a statement issued in Osogbo on Monday by the party’s publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed made an allegation that about 500,000 unclaimed Permanent Voter Cards in the state have been cloned.

The APC stated that the permanent voters’ card were cloned for the purposes of rigging ahead of Saturday’s election. The party claims the cloned PVCs have been handed over to people outside the state so that they would be able to vote in Osun this Saturday. The APC did not mention any party or persons as being responsible for the alleged cloning of the cards but they urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to look into the matter.

 “The All Progressives Congress has issued a red alert on the August 9 governorship election in the Osun State, saying about half a million Permanent Voters Cards, which were either unclaimed, not handed over to their authentic owners or were obtained fraudulently, have been cloned by unscrupulous persons ahead of the election, with the sole purpose of rigging.

“These cloned cards, mostly in the hands of persons from states other than Osun, are to be used along with the authentic PVCs issued to the electorate in Osun state during the August 9 Osun governorship election”, the statement said.

“Already, we can confirm that the hundreds of thousands of people in possession of these cloned cards all over Nigeria, especially in the states neighboring Osun, are being induced monetarily and instructed to super impose their photographs on the cloned PVCs.

“The game plan is for them to arrive early at the the polling booths on election day, where conniving electoral officials will turn a blind eye to this fraud by not checking whether or not the names of these impersonators with cloned cards are on the voters register before going ahead to accredit them, to pave the way for them to use the cloned cards to vote at the expense of the genuine holders of the cards”, the statement further read