The All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday raised the alarm over plans to rig the general elections by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), using what it described as the “Modified Ekiti Rigging Strategy”.
The party urged foreign election observers and the international community to beam a searchlight on the electoral process, stressing that the ruling party cannot be trusted.
APC National Publicity Secretary Alhaji Lai Mohammed told reporters in Lagos that PDP chieftains are working round the clock to manipulate the elections because the ruling party is not popular.
He said: “It is no longer news that a Captain in the Nigerian Army, Sagir Koli, has exposed how the administration used the military to rig the governorship election in Ekiti on June 21st 2014. According to Capt. Sagir, soldiers were put at the behest of designated PDP officials at each of the 16 local governments to work with the officials to rig the elections.
“Once the PDP officials pointed out any APC leader in a particular local government, such leader was either arrested and detained or simply hounded into hiding. APC leaders who were arrested also had the funds in their possession, including money to pay party agents and for other logistics, confiscated as they were detained till well after the election.
“We have additional information to give you on what has now become Ekitigate. Contrary to the general belief, it was not just the military that was involved. It was the entire gamut of the nation’s security agencies; the police, the State Security Service (SSS) and the Civil Defence. They were all constituted into a task force that was deployed to each local government and placed under the command of the PDP.
“We have the names of all the servicemen involved in the criminal act, as well as their service and telephones numbers. On the morning of the Ekiti election, not one APC leader was a free man or woman. They were either in detention, in hiding or on the run, because the task force carried out its duty with brutal efficiency.”
Mohammed alleged that plans were underway to modify the strategy used to rig the Ekiti election, following public outcry over the “show of shame”.
He said, since it had become old-fashioned to use the military for the illegal act, PDP chieftains were sewing military and police uniforms for thugs, who will be instigated to create confusion during the exercise.
Mohammed stressed: “A large number of uniformed personnel on election day will be those donning fake uniforms and ranks, and their mandate will be to rig for the PDP and terrorise opposition members and supporters.
“They have also mobilised ethnic militias across the country; MASSOB in the Southeast; the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) in the Southwest and ex-militants in the Niger Delta. Mobilised under the pretext of a N9 billion pipeline contract, the marching order given to the ethnic militias is to destabilise the election in their respective regions, thus rendering it inconclusive. The highly disruptive and armed protest by the OPC in Lagos last Monday was a dress rehearsal for the plot.”
The Publicity Secretary said thugs have been trained in the Southwest,particularly Ondo and Ogun states, to disrupt the elections.
Urging the security agencies to rise to the occasion, Mohammed said: “In Ondo State, training was organised by the PDP leadership in Ilaje/Okitipupa zone. These thugs, numbering over 300, were given two weeks training in weapons use under a Commander/President called Miti. They have now been moved in 12 buses to join the Ogun State Group from where they will be dispatched to other states in the Southwest, with arms.
“For the Northern part of the country, the plot is to deploy the Special Forces, who were trained in Belarus, to the liberated territories in the Northeast, ostensibly to hold the liberated territories. But, in reality, they are to rig the election for the PDP. Also, Vice President Namadi Sambo has met with security chiefs in Kaduna with a request that they must deliver 2 million votes to the PDP anyhow, with promises of mouth-watering incentives include cash and promotion.”
The party official alleged that the Inspector-General of Police and the Service Chiefs are also part of the plot to rig the elections.
He recalled that the Inspector-General has issued a strange and unlawful warning to voters to cast their votes and leave the polling units.
Mohammed said a similar order is expected to be issued by the Chief of Army Staff, ahead of the election, in a bid to harass and intimidate voters.
Urging voters to ignore unlawful directives, which are not supported by the Electoral Act, he said voters are free to defend their votes without disrupting the electoral process.
Mohammed added: “Without being disruptive, they should use their phone cameras to document proceedings at the various polling booths so that no one will tamper with their votes. All they are required to do is to conduct themselves peacefully.
“We will not accept accept a repeat of the Ekiti rigging strategy in any form, modified or not. Voters must not be harassed or intimidated and they must be allowed to defend their votes, as supported by the Electoral Act. Those who are bent on rigging the elections must know that Nigeria will be under a global spotlight on election day. No polling booth, no matter where it is located, will escape that spotlight.”
Mohammed thanked the United States and Britain for their commitment to free, fair, credible and violence-free polls in Nigeria as demonstrated in the article jointly written by US Secretary of State John Kerry and British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Phillip Hammond.
He said: “We at the APC associate ourselves with that timely article in which the authors urged ‘all eligible Nigerians to vote, resist those who attempt to incite violence, and to come together as one country to defend the country against terrorist threats.
“Those planning to disrupt or rig the elections and instigate violence should heed the warning signals from the international community, as aptly conveyed by Mr. John Kerry and Mr Phillip Hammond, that ‘any person who incites violence at any stage in the electoral process, or who seeks power through unconstitutional means, should be held accountable and should understand that the consequences will be severe, both domestically and internationally.”
