|My Passu| Fayemi to Sambo: We Are Ready For Abuja Evil Machinations There is a part of me that still wants to treat it with scepticism and I still would like to take it up with the Vice President whenever I get the opportunity. I hope he would deny the report. But I do think the underlying implication of the purported statement should worry any decent Nigerian who is interested in credible elections, especially in the light of what recently happened at Ilaje – Ese Odo and the role played by a minister of government which has now been confirmed by the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Ondo State. In any decent polity, the Minister would have been asked to leave by now. If you do anything that flies flagrantly in the face of the law – then the maximum weight of the law ought to be applied by INEC. The law is very clear on these matters and even the military is empowered to disobey manifestly unlawful orders. What happened in Ilaje-Ese Odo appears to many people as a precursor of the grand plan to steal elections in Ekiti and Osun States. And INEC ought to be sending a very strong signal that the institution would not take kindly to unlawful interference in the electoral process. I can tell you that there is a lot of intelligence available to me about people sewing fake soldiers and policemen uniforms in preparation for Ekiti election and I hope INEC would be reassuring not just Ekiti people but also Nigerians, because the Ekiti election is even far more important than the 2015 election, because if confidence is lost in INEC’s preparation and eventual conduct of the Ekiti election, that will rub off terribly on the 2015 election. I mean INEC is already on the tenter-hooks, given what happened in Anambra. To then see Ekiti election going in the wrong direction would totally put paid to any hope, on the part of Nigerians, that anything good can come out of the 2015 elections, and I don’t think President Jonathan needs that. I think he has conveyed an image of himself as a decent politician who is not going to manipulate or resort to extra-legal or illegal ways in election management in Nigeria. So I think INEC together with the Inter Agency Committee on Election Security would need to give Nigerians a lot of reassurance following the Vice President’s careless statement. But perhaps out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. I think it is very unfortunate. I think it is unbecoming of his office. And I think the Vice President really ought to withdraw the statement and reassure Nigerians that the agenda for Ekiti election is not going to be determined in Aso Rock but by Ekiti people, because it is a referendum on the performance of the government in Ekiti; it is not a national election. It should not be expanded to a national election. But let me also say that whatever evil machinations are in place from Abuja, Ekiti people are fully ready.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 07:36:05 +0000
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