The All Progressives Congress has asked President Goodluck Jonathan to
walk his talk as far as the organisation of free and fair elections in the
country is concerned, saying all the assurances so far given by the
President have not translated into credible elections.
In a statement in Lagos on Monday by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai
Mohammed, the party urged the President to go beyond mere rhetoric and
take concrete actions to ensure that the elections in the country are not
marred by the intimidation and harassment of opposition party members and
supporters as well as the deliberate disenfranchisement of voters, which
hallmarked the Anambra and Ekiti gubernatorial elections, among others.
It said, ”On the same day the President’s latest assurances of a free,
fair, credible and transparent elections in 2015 were being reported,
agents of the Jonathan-led federal government were ransacking the offices
of a company hired to carry out an opinion poll for Osun State ahead of
the August 9 gubernatorial election.
”If the opposition can no longer freely carry out opinion polls, if the
companies hired to carry out such polls are harassed and intimidated by
SSS officials as they did to tnsrms, the offices of which were searched
for six hours, after which top officials of the firm were dragged to the
SSS offices in Shangisha and computers carted away, then how can any
President convince anyone that free and fair elections can be held under
his watch?
”If the Ngozi Okonjo Iweala-linked NOI polling firm has never been
harassed for its choreographed opinion polls that favour the Jonathan
Administration, why should other firms be subjected to the kind of
Gestapo- tactics that tnsrms was exposed to? This is why we are asking
President Jonathan to walk to talk.”
The party said that already, the foundation was being laid to rig next
month’s governorship election in Osun at source, as INEC has been
frustrating attempts by APC members to obtain their Permanent Voters
Cards, even as the PDP has continued to boast that it will again use the
military to illegally shut down the state and bully the opposition in
Osun, just like it did in Ekiti.
It also wondered whether INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega properly weighed the
statement he made, in which he tried to justify the deployment of troops
to Ekiti for the state’s gubernatorial election on the basis that they
helped to ensure a violence-free election
It said, ”Jega should be asked to explain why is it that the troops who
were sent to provide security for the Ekiti election were harassing and
intimidating only the opposition? Why is it that they were arresting only
opposition members? Is that also part of providing security for an
election? If soldiers had only provided non-intrusive security for the
election, perhaps no one would have complained. But where they turned
themselves into the enforcement arm of the ruling party, everyone,
including INEC, should be concerned.”
The party called on President Jonathan to refrain from deploying the
military for election purposes and read the riot act to his cabinet
members, like Musiliu Obanikoro and Abduljelili Adesiyna, and party
officials who specialise in electoral malfeasance, and elections will
start becoming free, fair, credible and transparent to such an extent that
the world will notice.
”Saying one thing and doing the opposite, Mr. President, will not
translate to credible elections. The world is watching,” it said.
As a starting point, APC urged the President, if indeed he is committed to
free and fair elections, to launch an inquiry into why the offices of the
firm carrying out an opinion poll for Osun State were invaded, and to tell
Nigerians whether the firm would have been harassed if it had been hired
by the PDP or its candidate for the August 9 election.