The Rivers state chapter of the All Progressives Congress has raised alarm over the inability of the card readers in Rivers state to read the PVCs of its members in the 2015 general elections.
The party chairman Dr. Davies Ikanya told newsmen, that in the few polling units where elections held, that the card readers could not authenticate the PVCs of its supporters. Ikanya said “we noticed the card readers couldn’t read the pvc of most of our supporters in the last elections.
Personally I didn’t vote because the card reader failed in my unit. And the report we got from most of the polling units confirms the inability of the card readers to authenticate the PVCs of our supporters. And giving the short period INEC has to conduct the rerun elections, I doubt if these card readers can be replaced. So we are suggesting to INEC to step down on the use of the card readers in the interim.”
Reacting to Dr. Davies statement, a chieftain of the PDP from Emohua local government area said “the APC is afraid of elections. They simply don’t have the number to go for any rerun election. And no amount of registration and reregistration can give them 20 percent of the total valid votes in Rivers state.We defeated them in 2015, and we are more motivated to repeat it even in a greater dimension. Card reader has come to stay. And we are fully in support of INEC on the use of card readers to conduct elections.”
