Political parties operating under the aegis of Coalition of United Political Parties,CUPP, and Inter-Party Advisory Council, IPAC, have rejected the draft guidelines presented to them by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.

In a statement signed by CUPP’s first national spokesman, Ikenga Ugochinyere, 61 aggrieved parties said they would file a legal suit to stop INEC from releasing the guideline and also quash some sections of the draft guideline, which were in conflict with the provisions of the 1999 constitution, including the obnoxious provisions inserted into the guideline which will lead to massive rigging of the 2019 elections.

The parties said: “The suit which will be filed at the Federal High Court has four national chairmen of four political parties suing on behalf of the rest of the 61 political parties against the guideline.”

“Ikenga Ugochinyere, APP; Dr Sam Eke, GPN; Nsehe Nseobong, RP Party and Barr. Kenneth Udeze, AA, will be seeking an exparte application for an injunction to restrain INEC chairman from going ahead with his plan to release the controversial guideline which majority of the nation’s political parties (over 61) have rejected over non-consultation, obnoxious clauses and violation of the Constitution.”

“The chairmen of the political parties still insist that the only way to have free and fair election is for those obnoxious clauses contained in the guidelines which does not promote free and fair elections to be expunged and that the INEC chairmen summons an emergency meeting with political parties chairmen to finally address the grey areas contained in the guidelines to avoid the 2019 election running into a hitch and credibility crisis, even before the day of election.

“The parties still insist that the chairman of INEC retains the 2011 and 2015 separate accreditation and separate voting system which Nigerian voters are fully familiar with and avoid creating confusion and loophole for massive tampering of result with the continuous/same time accreditation and voting.

‘’INEC recently tried the method in a few re-runs but that is not enough to extend such voting method to all parts of the country a few weeks to the election.

“The demand of party chairmen is for INEC to continue the separate accreditation and separate voting system and ensure that at the end of accreditation across the country on election day, INEC polling unit staff first announce the total polling unit accredited figures and sign and issue out to party agents at the polling unit before commencement of voting.