5th April 2009. Press Release.
“YOUR DESPERATION ON EKITI IS GETTING TOO FAR” -LAGOS AC TELLS PDP
The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress has described the PDP threat of deploying soldiers to Ekiti State during the April 25 bye-election as an act of desperation, which shows that the party has no hope of winning Ekiti State in a free and fair election. The party says it is regrettable that the party is beating the drums of war in a make-up election where the people of Ekiti have roundly rejected the PDP and its blind and visionless leadership.
In a release signed in Lagos by the AC’s Lagos State Publicity \Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, the party insisted that with the doors closing in on the PDP and their rigging tactics, it is only natural that they are hanging on the hope of employing soldiers to rig the Ekiti bye election. It promised the PDP that only by killing all Ekiti indigenes will give it victory in Ekiti State and that the earlier they jettison the idea of forcefully stealing the mandate of Ekiti people, the better for them.
“Does Yar’Adua and his PDP members, by their continuous threat of deploying soldiers to Ekiti for a bye election mean to say that the police has failed? Is it now the constitutional duty of soldiers to maintain internal peace and security? If the police have failed, does it mean that soldiers can now take over their duties? Is the intent to secure a war-torn state or to force Ekiti people out of the way for electoral thieves to have a filed day?
“It is apparent that the South West PDP, a product of callous electoral fraud is faced with extinction and that is why it does not trust in its own electoral capability but the force of martial commandeers in a democratic election. This desperation has led the PDP into inviting a whole gamut of non-performing members of the blind and rudderless PDP government to Ekiti to threaten the people with the fear of deploying soldiers with the intent of stealing the peoples’ votes. We assure them that they would be singing their nunc dimities if they attempt such brazen and reckless mismanagement of power, which they inherited through electoral fraud.
“We are not surprised that President Yar’Adua who emerged through a scandalous electoral mandate and who has performed so woefully as president thinks he will infest Ekiti with the same PDP liability. Perhaps, he and the charlatans who went to awe and seize Ekiti State with threats of deploying soldiers with the intent of committing the same electoral larceny that saw them to power do not know the character and sophistication of the state they want to conscript into their vassal territory. If they know, they would not exhibit such high degree of callousness and insensitivity as they did in their ill-fated campaign in Ekiti \State.
“What gave them the inkling that they are wasting their efforts in trying to capture Ekiti by force was when they have to go and hire people from neighboring states to fill their rally and it explains why a party that feels it is popular in a state feels it cannot win elections except through the employment of fearful threats of deploying soldiers to capture the state for them. \\
“From the tribunals where it was proved that the PDP engaged in wholesome electoral fraud to capture Ekiti to their woeful failure to woo former governor Ayo Fayose to boost its sagging fortune, to the unreceptive attitude of the generality of the Ekiti people, it is apparent that the PDP, from the president to the last man, is struck with the fear of collapse of another stolen heist, hence their feeling that they would do nothing about the April 25 bye elections without the use of soldiers. Particularly pitiable are the case of the infantile Speaker of the House of Representatives and the impish governor of Osun State who have no real electoral value than mere thinking of forcefully commandeering the mandates of the people. Lagos AC wants to assure them that their days of appropriating stolen mandates are over and soon and very soon, the aberrations they have constituted to the South West will be a sordid chapter in the black history of the South West.
“We want to assure the good people of Ekiti State that no power on earth will divert their mandate and we want them to stand resolute and firm in defending their mandates against a desperate cabal of power mongers who desire raw and reckless power for their personal benefits and to the detriment of the country as we have seen in these sad and woeful ten years.”
Joe Igbokwe.
Publicity Secretary,
Lagos AC.hpo
