APC Says Jonathan Plan To Rig Osun, Future Elections

The All Progressives Congress has asked President Goodluck Jonathan to

walk his talk as far as the organisation of free and fair elections in the

country is concerned, saying all the assurances so far given by the

President have not translated into credible elections.

In a statement in Lagos on Monday by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai

Mohammed, the party urged the President to go beyond mere rhetoric and

take concrete actions to ensure that the elections in the country are not

marred by the intimidation and harassment of opposition party members and

supporters as well as the deliberate disenfranchisement of voters, which

hallmarked the Anambra and Ekiti gubernatorial elections, among others.

It said, ”On the same day the President's latest assurances of a free,

fair, credible and transparent elections in 2015 were being reported,

agents of the Jonathan-led federal government were ransacking the offices

of a company hired to carry out an opinion poll for Osun State ahead of

the August 9 gubernatorial election.
”If the opposition can no longer freely carry out opinion polls, if the

companies hired to carry out such polls are harassed and intimidated by

SSS officials as they did to tnsrms, the offices of which were searched

for six hours, after which top officials of the firm were dragged to the

SSS offices in Shangisha and computers carted away, then how can any

President convince anyone that free and fair elections can be held under

his watch?
”If the Ngozi Okonjo Iweala-linked NOI polling firm has never been

harassed for its choreographed opinion polls that favour the Jonathan

Administration, why should other firms be subjected to the kind of

Gestapo- tactics that tnsrms was exposed to? This is why we are asking

President Jonathan to walk to talk.”
The party said that already, the foundation was being laid to rig next

month's governorship election in Osun at source, as INEC has been

frustrating attempts by APC members to obtain their Permanent Voters

Cards, even as the PDP has continued to boast that it will again use the

military to illegally shut down the state and bully the opposition in

Osun, just like it did in Ekiti.
It also wondered whether INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega properly weighed the

statement he made, in which he tried to justify the deployment of troops

to Ekiti for the state's gubernatorial election on the basis that they

helped to ensure a violence-free election
It said, ”Jega should be asked to explain why is it that the troops who

were sent to provide security for the Ekiti election were harassing and

intimidating only the opposition? Why is it that they were arresting only

opposition members? Is that also part of providing security for an

election? If soldiers had only provided non-intrusive security for the

election, perhaps no one would have complained. But where they turned

themselves into the enforcement arm of the ruling party, everyone,

including INEC, should be concerned.”
The party called on President Jonathan to refrain from deploying the

military for election purposes and read the riot act to his cabinet

members, like Musiliu Obanikoro and Abduljelili Adesiyna, and party

officials who specialise in electoral malfeasance, and elections will

start becoming free, fair, credible and transparent to such an extent that

the world will notice.
”Saying one thing and doing the opposite, Mr. President, will not

translate to credible elections. The world is watching,” it said.

As a starting point, APC urged the President, if indeed he is committed to

free and fair elections, to launch an inquiry into why the offices of the

firm carrying out an opinion poll for Osun State were invaded, and to tell

Nigerians whether the firm would have been harassed if it had been hired

by the PDP or its candidate for the August 9 election.

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