Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has described the Saturday’s bye-election into Port Harcourt Constituency III of Rivers State House of Assembly as another sad reality that votes of Nigerians will not count in the 2019 general election.
He said indications pointed out that the elections would be held at gunpoint to achieve predetermined results.
The governor said it should now be obvious to all Nigerians that the country was in a state of anarchy under President Muhammadu Buhari as his government had allegedly destroyed the legacy of the free, fair and credible conduct of elections bequeathed to him by the Peoples Democratic Party.
Fayose, in a release issued on Sunday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, said it was worrisome that the same way the Federal Government invaded Ekiti with over 50,000 armed security personnel last month and laid siege to the state for a whole week was how they invaded Rivers State on Saturday with men of the State Anti-Robbery Squad that aided the APC thugs.
“Even the Independent National Electoral Commission could not but point it out in its press statement announcing the suspension of the election that miscreants and hoodlums accompanied by heavily armed security personnel in uniform stormed polling units, destroying and carting away electoral materials as well as holding electoral officers hostage.
“We thought that we have gone past this era of the manipulated electoral process after the 2015 general election, which brought the APC and President Buhari to power but the country has been taken back to the Stone Age by merging the APC with INEC, police, military and other security agencies.”
Fayose called for the arrest and prosecution of the policemen that took part in the shootings and snatching of election materials in Rivers State on Saturday.
“There is pictorial evidence of the policemen on the social media; the police authority must not sweep this under the carpet as usual.”
“If the election in just 142 polling units was so militarised, with gunshots everywhere, the time has come for Nigerians to rise up to this challenge of making sure that the democracy that they fought for is not destroyed by those whose only interest is to retain power in 2019.”
The governor challenged President Buhari to stop pretending as if he knew nothing about the electoral malfeasance going on under his watch.
“It is the interest of the President that is being protected and it is a disservice to a man who is close to 80 years to allow his country to be turned to a war zone just because he is seeking a reelection.”