The Ekiti
State Governor, Ayodele Fayose has described Saturday’s by-election in Rivers
State for Port Harcourt Constituency III State Assembly seat as “another sad
reality that votes of Nigerians will not be allowed to count at the 2019
election as the elections will be held at gun-point
to achieve predetermined results”.
INEC has
suspended the election, citing “widespread violence”.
According to
the Governor, despite the legacy of free, fair and credible conduct of
elections bequeathed to the APC government of President Muhammadu Buhari,
Nigeria is in a state of anarchy, because of the desperation of a few people to
retain power.
In a release
issued on Sunday by Fayose’s Special Assistant on Public Communications and New
Media, Lere Olayinka, quoted him as saying, “it is worrisome that the same way
they invaded Ekiti State with over 50,000 armed security personnel last month
and laid siege on the State for a whole week was how they invaded Rivers State
yesterday with men of the State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) that aided APC thugs
to snatch election materials, including card readers and abduct INEC officials.
“Even INEC
could not but point it out in its press statement announcing suspension of the
election that miscreants and hoodlums accompanied by heavily armed security
personnel in uniform stormed polling units, destroying and carting away
electoral materials as well as holding electoral officers hostage.
“We thought
that we have gone past this era of manipulated electoral process after the 2015
general elections, which brought the APC and President Buhari to power, the
country has been taken back to the Stone Age by merging APC with INEC, police,
military and other security agencies.”
The Ekiti
Governor called for the arrest and prosecution of the policemen that took part
in the shootings and snatching of election materials in Rivers State, saying
“there are pictorial evidence of the policemen on the social media, the police
authority must not sweep this under the carpet as usual.”
He said if
an election in just 142 polling units was so militarized, with gunshots
everywhere, “time has come for Nigerians to rise up to this challenge of making
sure that the democracy that they fought for is not destroyed by those whose
only interest is to retain power in 2019.”
The Governor
said; “I warned Nigerians in 2015 and when this reign of tyranny started, I
kept warning. Now; free, fair and credible election is dead in Nigeria and
election has become what the ruling party must ‘win’ at gun-point.”
He
challenged President Buhari to stop pretending as if he knew nothing about the
electoral malfeasance going on under his watch, adding that “It is the interest
of the President that is being protected and it is a disservice to a man who is
close to 80 years to allow his country to be turned to a war zone just because
he is seeking reelection.”
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