Poll: ACPN Raises Alarm Over Plans To Arrest Candidates

SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, (THEWILL) - The Alarm has been raised by the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) over the harassment and intimidation of its candidates and supporters ahead of the April general elections commencing next Saturday.

In a statement issued in Ilorin yesterday by the spokesperson of ACPN, Alhaji Abdulahi Oganija, the party said the PDP has continued to harass, intimidate and deliberately clamp down on members and candidates of his party ostensibly to prevent it from having a good showing at next Saturday’s election and subsequent ones.

Founded by the strongman of Kwara politics and former Senate Leader, Dr. Olusola Saraki, the ACPN assumed the status of the party to beat in Kwara State after members of the ruling party moved in droves with the Waziri of Ilorin to the ACPN following what he described as the hostility against him by the power wielders in the party in Kwara state.

Since the emergence of ACPN on the political scene in Kwara State shortly before the primary elections, there have been series of attack and arrest of members of the party believed to be orchestrated by the ruling party to cow members and supporters of the party ahead of the April elections.

Among those the ACPN said have been placed on wanted list by the power that be in state include the ACPN Kwara Central candidate for the House of Assembly, Abdul-lateef Jida, Hon. Wahab Issa, Lola Ashiru, Ahmadu Bayero and the Ilorin East LG chairman.

Attributing the development to the obvious rejection of the PDP by the people of Kwara, Oganija informed that the harassment by the ruling party has forced many candidates of the ACPN into hiding to prevent them from being arrested.

The spokesperson of the ACPN also revealed that the PDP has concluded plans to use the instrumentality of office to extend the intimidation to voters as the first in the general elections hold next Saturday.

Submitting that the intimidation will not change the people’s decision against the PDP, the ACPN lamented that most of its candidates can not afford to sleep in their homes any longer because of fear of arrest, adding that the PDP is only afraid of being whitewashed at the polls.

The ACPN thus appealed to the PDP to allow for a free and fair election devoid of intimidation to enable the electorate decide who rules them at the polls without any form of coercion.