APC Reps Kick Against Alleged Plans To Postpone Polls

APC REPS CAUCUS

The caucus of the All Progressives Congress in the House of Representatives on Thursday kicked against any plan to postpone the February general elections.


It said the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) on tenure of government and the four-year cycle of elections, must be adhered to “at all times”.

The caucus’s stance came on the heels of calls by the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), that the elections should be postponed due to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s inability to sufficiently distribute the Permanent Voter Cards to voters.

The Minority Leader of the House and leader of the caucus, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, noted that, by his position, the NSA had exposed what appeared to have been part of alleged plans of the Peoples Democratic Party-led Federal Government to postpone the poll.

“This was the plot all along. The NSA has no role to play in the distribution of PVCs. Whatever they do and how ever they do it, they cannot go against the provisions of the constitution, which is sacrosanct and must be obeyed.

“Elections remain a democratic process with a four-year cycle under our constitution”, Gbajabiamila stated on Thursday.

The minority leader explained that the only way the government could postpone the elections was to amend the constitution.

He noted that even amending the constitution for this purpose would not be easy because it would be another guise for tenure elongation.

Gbajabiamila warned that any such move was likely to fail just like the Third Term Agenda failed at the tail end of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.

“The lifespan and the life of this government end in May 2015 unless the constitution is amended. And of course, we all know what happened the last time an attempt was made to amend the constitution for the purpose of extending the tenure of a sitting government”, he added.