ACN warns PDP against rigging Edo polls

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has warned that any attempt torig the July 14th gubernatorial election inEdo State will trigger a chain of cataclysmic reactions, the end ofwhich no one can predict.

In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National PublicitySecretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party saidthe warning became necessary in view of the desperation of the PDP tocapture Edo State at all cost, first as a trophyfor its new Chairman who is bent on ensuring his party wins the firstelection under his chairmanship, and also as afoothold for the President’s presumed ambition for 2015.

It said events leading to the election have shown that the PDP is benton creating an atmosphere that will be hostile to theholding of a free, fair and transparent poll.ACN therefore called on its members and supporters in Edo State toresist any attempt by the PDP to rig the forthcomingpoll, saying they must not only turn out en masse to vote for Gov.Adams Oshiomhole, on the basis of his performance in office,but must also stay behind until the votes have been counted and theresult announced, contrary to the ‘vote and go’ riggingstrategy of the PDP.”

In the years since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, thePDP has evolved from bare-faced rigging on electionday to a new system in which the ruling party, in collusion withmalleable and unpatriotic security agencies, makes free andfair elections impossible by intimidating the opposition andinstigating violence ahead of voting, thus paving the way for theimposition of a ‘curfew’ on election day that will ensure voters onlycome out to vote and return home, handing the PDP andits cohorts in INEC and security agencies a carte blanche to determinethe outcome of the voting.

”Already, the trend is glaring: At least two attempts have been madeon the life of Gov. Oshiomhole, first when a truckrammed his convoy and killed many after narrowly missing him, and thenlast week when suspected political thugsattacked the Governor, top government officials and ACN stalwarts inUsen town. Add that to the cold-blooded killing ofthe Governor’s Principal Private Secretary Olaitan Oyerinde, and theevil machinations against the Governor and his partybegin to manifest.”

The strategy is simple: Go after the Governor and scare off histeeming supporters, and then hope they will fight back, thusprecipitating chaos that will then be capitalized upon by the PDPfederal government to declare a curfew, at best, and a stateof emergency, at worst.

But while we urge our members and supportersto be peaceful and to resist playing into the hands of thePDP, they must be vigilant, they must know that it is against theElectoral Act for anyone to ask them to leave the pollingstation after voting. They must not leave until the votes have beencounted and the results announced,” the party said.ACN said what happened in 2011 must not be allowed to repeat itself,when gullible international observers, after witnessing aseemingly orderly process in which patriotic voters queued and casttheir votes, then returned to their hotels to declare the electionsfree and fair, without witnessing the events at the collation centreswhere most of the rigging took place.

The party said the PDP is even more emboldened to manipulate electionsnow, knowing full well that it has almost emasculatedthe judiciary, which gave respite to some of the candidates who wererobbed in the previous elections, and also because it hasmuscled through a constitutional amendment that prevents robbedcandidates from getting justice after 180 days.It advised President Goodluck Jonathan to pull the brakes on therunaway rigging train of his party before it derails the nation’sdemocracyunder his watch.”If the PDP is as popular and acceptable to Nigerians as it claims,why is it afraid of a free and fair election? If President Jonathanbelieves his party is the only truly national party that can meet theyearnings and aspirations of Nigerians, why is he unwilling to callhis party to order now that it is bent on pushing the nation into theabyss of violence through election rigging?” ACN queried.