Elections are likely to be inconclusive in the Southwest, the All Progressives Congress (APC) warned yesterday.
The party spoke of a plan by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and President Goodluck Jonathan’s supporters to make Saturday’s elections inconclusive, having realised that they cannot deliver the zone to the PDP as they have promised.
In a statement issued yesterday in Lagos by the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the plot was conceived at a meeting held in the Ondo State Government House on March 13.
The Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) is said to be part of the plot in which youths have been armed with guns and other weapons. The youths, said APC, will be given military and police uniforms, “which we earlier said were being sewn in the capital of a state in the Southwest.”
The APC said the highly-disruptive and armed protest by the OPC in Lagos on March 16 was a dress rehearsal for the plan to be executed across the states in the Southwest.
The party also said the PDP had compiled for the Police anti-cult squad names of APC youths in all the Wards in Ondo State so they can be arrested and locked up before, during and after the elections, to give the PDP and its cohorts the free rein to carry out their nefarious activities.
‘’As a matter of fact, funds have been provided to the Police Anti-Cult Squad to expand its detention facility, and work is going on at the facility as we write. The reason for these actions is that, despite the massive infusion of illicit funds to bribe individuals and groups in the Southwest, the PDP and its agents in the region have realised that their strategy has backfired and even given the people more impetus to vote against the ruling party,’’ it said.
APC called on the security agencies, especially the police and the State Security Service, to shun partisanship in carrying out their assigned responsibilities to prevent any individual or group from disrupting the elections, irrespective of their political leanings.
‘’Let’s be clear: In the event that the security agencies fail to carry out their duties, we will hold them, as well as those behind the plot to disrupt the elections, totally responsible for any disruption in the polls. They will also be held responsible for any act of violence or intimidation against the opposition,’’ the party warned.
It appealed to its members and supporters across the Southwest to be calm but vigilant, and to document all actions aimed at harassing and intimidating them, as well as all acts of violence and all moves to disrupt the polls in the geo-political zone.
‘’The forthcoming elections are being closely watched within and outside Nigeria. In other words, the eyes of the world are on our country. Therefore, no one who engages in violence, rigging or intimidation of voters, to scare them away from the polling booths, will go scot-free, irrespective of his status,’’ the APC said.
The Nation.
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