PRESS STATEMENT 19TH MARCH 2009
ONDO STATE LOCAL COUNCIL ADVENT OF POLICE STATE
Conference of Nigeria Political Parties {CNPP}, carefully observed how President Umaru Musa Yaradua, against the rule of law and due process, ordered the Inspector General of Police to besiege Local Council Headquarters in Ondo State, hence turning the state into a Police State.
Whereas, we do not support the dissolution of the Local Councils, by Governor Olusegun Mimiko, nor the illegality of conducting Local Council election in breach of subsisting Court order by ex-Governor Segun Agagu: however it is our considered view that the court process could have been allowed to prevail; moreso, when the chairmen and councilors whose tenure was dissolved had already gone to court.
Three Wrongs cannot make right.
CNPP wishes to warn that the desperation of President Yaradua and his party, Peoples Democratic Party {PDP}, to capture Nigeria is the greatest threat to our fledgling democracy. It is painful that PDP leadership are sliding into panic driven hysteria; which is an ill wind. Otherwise we do not know why a regime, whose mantra is rule of law, is using state power to assault a state government.
The advent of Police State shows in clear terms why President Yaradua paradoxically jettisoned the Electoral Reform Report that in the spirit of the times, insulated him from appointing Chairman and key officers of the Electoral Commission and adopted the proviso that recommended the merger of national and state Electoral Commissions.
The danger of it all is that we are returning back to the despotism of ex-president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who at every turn resorts to state of emergency at will against his perceived political enemies.
Finally, President Yaradua, should learn from history, that failure to deliver the dividends of democracy, more than any other factor is why South West and indeed Nigerians are contemptuous and distancing themselves from the PDP.
Osita Okechukwu
National Publicity Secretary
CNPP
