2015: Security agencies probe movement of northerners to South

Security agents have launched a probe into the movement of northerners to the South-East and the South-South regions of the country, the Punch on Sunday has reported.

According to the newspaper, the investigation is with a view to finding out if the movement has any link with the 2015 general elections.

The paer quoting a highly place security source, who spoke with select journalists in Abuja on Saturday on condition of anonymity, said the probe was as a result of the clamour by the northern region to win the presidency on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.

He said this was the focus their investigation of some 486 northerners arrested while travelling in a convoy of 33 buses to Abia State on June 16.

He said, “There were allegations that the All Progressives Congress wants to move thousands of eligible voters from the North-West and North-Eastern part of the country to the South-East and South-South in the next few weeks where they could register as eligible voters ahead of the Presidential election in February next year.

“Many of the 486 people who were arrested and detained had confessed to having been mobilized by political party chieftains to relocate to the South and integrate into the civil populace ahead of the 2015 polls.

“The plan, according to some of those interviewed, is to increase the voting strength of the opposition political party and secure the mandatory twenty-five per cent of votes cast in those states and thereby enhance its chances of winning the Presidential election.

“When one considers the fact that the constitution requires that for a person to be declared winner in a Presidential election, he must score at least one quarter of votes cast in twenty four states in addition to scoring the highest number of votes cast nationwide, it becomes clear that a party which does not score this mandatory percentage in the eleven states of the South-East and South-South will be in a very precarious situation.”

He also said that the investigation team was also said to have gathered that the arrested travellers could be just one tranche of thousands of others that might have moved earlier into different states and registered during the continuous voters registration exercise.

“Most of the arrested persons said they had never travelled out of the North and were told that arrangements had been made for their accommodation and feeding for the next six months,” he said.