“If an integral part of the process was badly tainted as we
have clearly and fully demonstrated above, then the entire process
cannot but be tainted.”
The All Progressives Congress, APC, said
on Thursday that
the governorship election in Ekiti State was manipulated to favour the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate, Ayo Fayose.
The APC stated this at the end of the inaugural meeting of the National Working Committee, who were sworn into office last week.
Mr. Fayose of the PDP defeated his closest challenger, APC’s Kayode
Fayemi, by about 100,000 votes to emerge winner of the election held
on Saturday.
The APC, in the communiqué, released after the meeting said the
process leading up to the election was tainted, thus affecting the whole
election.
“If an integral part of the process was badly tainted as we have
clearly and fully demonstrated above, then the entire process cannot but
be tainted,” it said in the communiqué signed by its spokesperson, Lai
Mohammed.
Read the full communiqué below.
It is no longer news that the governorship election in Ekiti State
has been won and lost, and that our candidate, Gov. Kayode Fayemi, has
shown rare sportsmanship by conceding defeat and congratulating the
winner, Mr. Ayodele Fayose.
We are very proud of Gov. Fayemi for his conduct and comportment
before, during and after the election, and we hail him as a true
democrat in the true spirit of the APC’s belief that election is never a
do or die affair, and that Nigerians must always be free to elect those
to govern them. After all, it is said that the just powers of
governments are derived from the consent of the governed.
Gentlemen, election is a process, and whatever happens on the voting
day is only an integral part of that process. What happens before,
during and after the voting day complete the process.
If, therefore, we view the just-concluded election in Ekiti as a
process, then we can confidently say that while the events of the voting
day itself may have led many to believe that the election was free and
fair, the same cannot be said of the events before, during and after the
election.
We therefore believe that we owe it a duty to the continuous
improvement of our electoral system and indeed the sustainability of our
democracy to X-ray this election within the context that we have
outlined above and draw the necessary lessons
Incidents before election day
We believe that the events leading to the D-Day in Ekiti negate the
principles of a free, fair and credible election. From the
militarization of the election to the police attack on our supporters,
arrest and detention of our leaders across the state and the use of huge
funds to induce voters, the federal authorities skewed everything in
favour of the PDP.
Militarization of the process:
With thousands of armed troops, police, state security and civil
defence personnel deployed to Ekiti, the state was simply under a total
lock down. While we believe that the police and the civil defence indeed
have a role to play in providing the necessary security for the
election, we do not see why soldiers who were armed to the teeth need to
be deployed to a non-belligerent situation like an election, especially
at a time that their services are more needed elsewhere to turn around a
slow motion war that is daily claiming the lives of our compatriots.
The questions to ask are: who ordered the deployments of the troops and
for what purpose. Who gave the orders to stop Gov. Rotimi Amaechi from
reaching Ado-Ekiti, as the Army captain who stopped and threatened to
shoot him said he was acting under ”orders from above”.
It is worth mentioning that the physical prevention of Gov. Amaechi
from joining his colleagues at the final campaign rally of Gov. Fayemi
in Ekiti is a direct function of the unnecessary deployment of troops to
Ekiti for the election. This event will go down as the biggest affront
to democracy in our country in recent times.
Also worth mentioning is the flagrant abuse of national institutions
that led to the country’s aviation authorities shutting down airports in
Akure and elsewhere on the same day that our party had its last
campaign rally in Ado-Ekiti. This act of impunity was targeted solely at
the opposition, and it runs against global standards. Let’s we forget
on the same day the helicopter ferrying Governor Adams Oshiomhole fro
Benin Airport to Akure en route Ekiti for that finally rally was
prevented from taking off. Airports are never shut without the issuance
of a NOTAM - Notice to Airmen. Again, who gave the orders for the
closure of the airports?
While still on this, it was widely reported that two aircraft made a
total of three flights to Akure Airport ferrying what is suspected to be
raw cash for use in the Ekiti election. This was neither denied nor
investigated, just like no one investigated the police attack on our
peaceful supporters during a peaceful procession in Ado-Ekiti on June
8th that led to the death of one person; the teargassing of Gov. Fayemi
when he intervened to save the situation; the interception of over 200
boxes of electoral materials by security agents in Ekiti and the
busting, three days to the election, of a pro-Fayose and PDP gang in a
resort owned by Fayose’s Campaign Manager while they were thumb printing
ballot papers ahead of Saturday’s election. The 22 young men, who were
arrested, were also caught preparing INEC form EC8.
Incidents during Election Day
On the eve of the election and on election day, without any reason,
security personnel arrested APC leaders and supporters across Ekiti,
ferrying them far away from where they could vote or monitor the conduct
of the election. This is an attestation to the fact that the security
operatives were in the state more for a sinister motive than just to
provide security for the election.
In fact, the compromise by the security operatives became more
obvious when a so-called Special Task Force comprising of Military,
Police, SSS and NDLEA officers were summoned to a meeting
Friday afternoon – a day before the election, near the Tantaliser fast food eatery at Ado-Ekiti.
In the presence of AIG Baka Nasarawa, Mrs Florence Ikhanone (National
Director of SSS) and Brig.-Gen. Momoh, who was the head of the military
to the election, Mr. Ayo Fayose’s Chief Security Officer, Kayode
Adeoye, and Chris Uba addressed the curiously-named Special Task Force
which included 67 SSS operatives, 30 soldiers, 30 NDLEA operatives and
70 mobile policemen.
(Messrs.) Adeoye and Uba reminded the officers of the Special Task
Force of their duty to President Goodluck Jonathan, who was identified
as their benefactor, and how the officers must ensure that their
benefactor wins the election.
This was the same team that went round the state from
Friday evening
and throughout the duration of the election picking leaders of the APC
from across the state in specially-designated black buses with
Presidency plate numbers.
The case of the Campaign Manager of Gov. Fayemi, Mr. Bimbo Daramola,
was particularly traumatic and saddening. His fiancee and aged father
were harassed by armed soldiers who invaded his country home in the
middle of the night, with guns being pointed at them as if they were
common criminals. The Campaign Manager himself, an honourable member of
the House of Representatives, was hounded into an unknown place by
soldiers….all this because of an election!
Also on the receiving end of the brutality by security agents were
accredited journalists, some of whom were ”deported”, so to say, to
neighbouring Kwara State by paid agents of state who turned themselves
to enforcers for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The Mopol Commander who led the operation to ”deport” journalists
from Ekiti is the same fellow who led policemen to attack harmless APC
supporters who were holding a peaceful procession in Ado-Ekiti. This
obviously poorly trained and unprofessional police officer, who was on a
mission in Ekiti, acted with such impunity because he once served as
the ADC to Goodluck Jonathan when he was a deputy governor in Bayelsa
State, and felt he was not accountable to anyone.
Incidents during and after Election Day
While our leaders and supporters were being hounded and arrested across
Ekiti during and after the voting, some PDP ministers and PDP stalwarts
were moving around freely, with armed escort, even with a restriction
on movement in place. What business did these Ministers and their
cohorts have in Ekiti during the election? What was their role in the
election?
These are questions begging for answers.
Conclusion
At a press conference addressed by our Chairman on June 20th, we
warned that our democracy was in clear and present danger from
anti-democratic forces who are bent on winning elections, especially in
the South-west, at all cost. Today, we restate that warning and call for
a reversal of the incidents that made sure a level playing ground was
not provided for all the candidates at the just concluded election in
Ekiti.
While voting on Election Day may not have been characterized by the
usual brigandage and violence, we submit that the entire process was
everything but free and fair. If an integral part of the process was
badly tainted as we have clearly and fully demonstrated above, then the
entire process cannot but be tainted. Voting in Ekiti may have been free
of the usual violence or manipulation at the collation centres, but the
entire electoral process in the state was neither free, fair nor
credible.
Therefore, in order to prevent a recurrence of what happened in
Ekiti, especially the militarization of the process, the harassment and
intimidation of citizens, especially those in opposition, my party has
decided to challenge in court the role of the military in policing
elections. We will also encourage our leaders and supporters, who were
arrested, harassed and intimidated to seek the enforcement of their
constitutionally-guaranteed fundamental rights that were recklessly
abridged by the security agencies, especially soldiers.
In this regard, we commend the good people of Nigeria who have spoken
out openly against these bare-faced acts of hooliganism by the very
agents of state paid by taxpayers to prevent such acts.
Our decision to act is not only to ensure that these irresponsible
and unconstitutional acts are not repeated in subsequent elections,
especially that in Osun in August and next year’s general elections, but
also because we have always said that evil thrives when good men do
nothing!
Alhaji Lai Mohammed
National Publicity Secretary
(The Communiqué was issued at the end of the inaugural meeting of the
National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC)
in Abuja on
Thursday, June 26th 2014).
