The Labour Party governorship candidate in Delta State, Mr. Great Ogboru, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to fix the governorship and House of Assembly elections for March 28 while the presidential and National Assembly elections should hold on April 11.

Ogboru said alternating the election dates would give each political party an idea of its strengths.

The LP candidate said this during an interview with journalists in Lagos on Wednesday.

He said if a political party wins the governorship election in a particular state, it would give an idea of the popularity that party has ahead of the presidential elections.

He said, “I advocate very strongly that the sequence of the elections should be alternated. Let the governorship and state House of Assembly elections hold first because the tension over the presidential elections is too much. So, why can’t we have the state elections first?

“Today, we have been made to believe that a particular party has already won the presidential elections; so if the outcome is different, it would appear as if the elections were rigged and that would cause them to form a parallel government.

“So, why can’t we conduct the state elections first and let us see who has the spread? So that by the time we conduct the presidential elections, the results from the governorship election would be an indication of each party’s strength.”

Ogboru maintained that INEC was not well prepared for the elections before they were postponed.

He urged the commission to hold a mock election in order to test the card readers properly.

He said, “I did not believe INEC when it said it was ready for the elections. The card readers that will be used for the elections have never really been tested under proper election conditions.

“We should have had a pilot test on a large scale for us to be able to determine that those card readers are reliable, efficient and will work under election conditions. But since that has not been done, we are apprehensive of the outcome of those card readers in the coming elections. So, it leads me to the conclusion that even though INEC claims to be ready, they are not really ready.”

Source: PUNCH