The presidential campaign organisation of former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has asked the owner of the online platform alibaba.com, Jack Ma, to permanently remove the cloned Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) from its platform.
The campaign noted that the sale of Nigerian PVCs on the online platform amounts to a breach of Nigeria’s electoral integrity and it’s national security. Atiku’s campaign organisation was reacting to a statement by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the alarm it raised over attempts to clone Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and to sell them online.
The commission in a statement issued by its director, Voter Education and Publicity, Oluwole Osaze Uzzi, late Sunday evening said it is taking the matter seriously and will engage the government and security agencies as well as the promoters of the platform in order to get to the root of it.
The letter from Atiku’s campaign office was dated July 2, and addressed to the owner of the online hub, Jack Ma. The letter written by the director general of Atiku Presidential Campaign Organisation and former governor of Ogun State, Gbenga Daniel, is entittled “A Matter of National Security and Electoral Integrity Involving alibaba.com.”
The director general of the campaign said, “I write this open letter because my attention has been drawn to an egregious breach of Nigeria’s electoral integrity and thus our national security, by the sale of Nigerian Permanent Voter Cards, onalibaba.com.
“We are very concerned about this security breach because it threatens Nigeria’s desire to build strong institutions, like the Independent National Electoral Commission.
A situation like this could lead to massive vote buying and thus thwart our efforts and instead create strong men where we want to enable strength in institutions.