All Progressives Congress (APC), on Monday, in Lagos, raised the alarm that the President Goodluck Jonathan-led administration and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are plotting to rig the Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections by employing what it termed a ‘Modified Ekiti rigging strategy’.
The APC had alleged that the last Ekiti State governorship poll was rigged through use of the military hierarchy in favour of the PDP candidate, Mr Ayodele Fayose, contending that the audio clip of the plot recorded by now fleeing Captain Sagir Koli was enough evidence that Ekiti State election was not free, fair and credible.
National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said this at a press conference he addressed, saying that as the election day drew nearer, the party was compelled to alert Nigerians of plans being employed by the PDP-led administration to manipulate the exercise, using a modified pattern of what occurred in Ekiti.
According to Mohammed, the new rigging strategy would involve the use of ethnic militias across the country, including MASSOB in the South-East; Oodua People’s Congres (OPC) in the South-West and ex-militants in the Niger-Delta, as well as sewing military and police uniforms for their party thugs to wear on election day, so they could rig the elections for the PDP.
“It is no longer news that a Captain in the Nigerian Army, Sagir Koli, exposed how the administration used the military to rig the governorship election in Ekiti on June 21, 2014.
“According to Sagir, soldiers were put at the behest of designated PDP officials at each of the 16 local government areas in the state to work with the officials to rig the elections.
“Once the PDP officials pointed out any APC leader in a particular local government, such leader was either arrested and detained or simply hounded into hiding. APC leaders who were arrested also had the funds in their possession, including money to pay party agents and for other logistics, confiscated as they were detained till well after the election,” Alhaji Mohammed recalled.
The APC spokesman, however, disclosed that additional information available to the party on what had now become Ekiti suggested that contrary to the general belief it was not just the military that was involved, but the entire gamut of the nation’s security agencies.
Mohammed urged all the APC members and supporters, and indeed, all Nigerians to show uncommon courage and patriotism by doing whatever it took, lawfully, to defend their votes.
0 comments:
Post a Comment