48 Hours To Elections: ACN Reveals PDP's Rigging Plans

Barely 48 hours to the National Assembly election, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has revealed that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, plans to rig the election, with the Inspector-General of Police, Hafiz Ringim, as the arrow head of the party’s plan.

The ACN at a press conference attended by three leaders of the party and Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola of Lagos State at the Lagos City Hall today, said the PDP had been muzzling opposition parties across the country, using the police to silence them.

Addressing the conference, ACN National Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, lamented that the election will be taking place against the backdrop of widespread insecurity of life and property throughout Nigeria, adding that the PDP government had prevented the opposition from using public facilities such as public press, radio stations among others for campaign.

Akande said that the ACN governorship candidate in Akwa Ibom State, Senator James Akpanudoedehe was detained by the police boss and tried for treason in a bid by the PDP to stop him from contesting the election in the state.

“A mass rally will hold simultaneous by our teeming supporters at a date to be announced later to demonstrate our will to resist the continuous act of terrorism by the police,” Akande stated.

According to him, the ACN believes in a free and fair election in which the vote of the people will count.

He urged members of the party to shun any act of rigging, warning that the ACN will not tolerate any attempt to steal its votes or nullify its mandate from any quarters.

The party also condemned the use of the military to monitor the election, saying that the PDP government only wants to use soldiers to scare away the electorate from voting and have the opportunity to rig the election.

“The lessons from Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other parts of the world are such that no force on earth is strong enough to stop the power of a free and determined people to liberate themselves. A word should be sufficient for the wise,” Akande warned.

He stated that the ACN held an emergency meeting to review the event where ACN candidates and supporters were brutalised by the police and therefore passed a vote of no confidence on the IGP as his activities were a shame to the noble profession of policing.

The ACN also called for the institution of an independent panel of enquiry into the endless assassination, kidnapping and other forms of violence that had claimed scores of lives in Akwa Ibom State since the emergence of Akpabio as governor in 2007.

“The ACN will not fold its arms and allow a repeat of the disgraceful activities of Ringim towards the PDP and Godswill Akpabio’s ‘rigging’ machinery in the coming governorship election in Akwa Ibom State,” he said.

The party demanded the immediate removal of the IGP from office before the April general elections and also called for the immediate release of the ACN voluntary workers detained in Ilorin, Kwara State.

“We are saying that with an IGP like Hafiz ‘Rigging’, the 2007 horror may turn out to be a child’s play. We are not comfortable with Hafiz ‘Rigging’ as the IGP and we call for his immediate removal.”

—Kazeem Ugbodaga