By Gabriel Enogholase

BENIN—AHEAD of the governorship elections scheduled to hold in Edo and Ondo States this year, the Forum of Registered Political Parties, FRPP, in Edo State has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately reconstitute the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in view of the recent Supreme Court pronouncement on the use of smart card readers in the conduct of elections in the country.

The forum also called on the National Assembly to, as a matter of urgency, amend the Electoral Act to ensure that the deployment and use of smart card readers for elections in the country was inserted in the Act and the Nigerian constitution before the conduct of the Edo and Ondo states governorship elections this year.

Speaking with newsmen in Benin, Edo State, yesterday, chairman of FRPP, Mr Ogba Victor, warned that manually conducted elections, which he said were always characterized by ballot box stuffing and  snatching, thuggery, multiple thumb printing, over voting and outright falsification of election results, should be done away with.

FRPP said that the Supreme Court’s observation that the card readers were not captured in the Electoral Act and the constitution will create another avenue for some judgments based on technicality rather than facts in relation to elections.

“We frown seriously at any conscious or unconscious attempt to return Nigeria to years of sorrow, anguish, maiming, arson, killing, impunity and imposition of political gladiators facilitated by the non-usage of card readers on the citizenry,” the group said.

On the 2016 governorship election in Edo State, the group said that only a development-inclined and political driven candidate should be elected to govern the state, adding that such a candidate must go through credible sets of elections conducted at the level of political party primaries and the general election devoid of rancour and electoral fraud.