ABUJA – CITIZENS of
Edo state, Friday, have stormed the Independent National Electoral Commission’s
(INEC) office in Abuja in a peaceful protest, accusing INEC
of complexity in
the just concluded gubernatorial poll in the state.
The protesters,
under the aegis of Coalition of Edo State Youth for Democracy, insisted that
the result declared by the electoral umpire at the election was not the true
reflection of the choice of the people of the state.
They were singing
solidarity songs and carrying placards with various inscriptions such as; ‘Edo
People reject INEC Result’, ‘INEC no-longer Independent’, ‘PDP won election in
Edo State’, ‘We Reject Vote Declared by INEC’, etc.
However, they were blocked
by fierce looking men of the Nigeria Police Force, who claimed that their
letter to stage a peaceful protest sent to the force was not approved by the
FCT Commissioner of Police, leading to a brief hiccup along the road leading to
INEC office in Maitama area.
Speaking at the rally, a member of the Nigeria
Youth Parliament, representing Edo Central Senatorial District, Hon. Prosper
Iyere said; “We are here today to let fellow Nigerians known that democracy has
been murdered, assassinated in Nigeria particularly the Edo state election.”
“|The governor has orchestrated and tried to connive with INEC to rig the
election without taking the people of Edo State into cognizant.”
“They have
denied us our votes; election was completely rigged and we are not comfortable
with it. We have of course held the series of protests in Edo state, and again
we felt we should come to the capital territory Abuja because of the same
issue.” “We are marching to INEC office to register our complaint and
displeasure and we are going to give them the copy of the petition letter that
they should ensure our mandate is restored back to Pastor Iza moje of PDP that
is why we are here,” he said. He also said that, “The issue is already in
tribunal, and we think very strongly that this protest will also give sense of
direction to the tribunal.”
“We have a lot of evidences, we have video in CD
plate and upon completion we are going to present it to all media houses for
them to be guided and see that the election in Edo state was a rigged.” Also
speaking, the Edo State People Democratic Party (PDP) Youth Leader, Thaddus
Irabor maintained that “It’s not good for someone to seat in comfort of his or
her room and write the result of the election.”
“As it is now,
democracy is threatened in Nigeria, because people of Edo state will not come
out and vote again because they felt they have been cheated and their votes
never counted. What is the need for them to come out to vote?”
“If they know
they have power to rig the election after primary election declared the person
winner, don’t let us waste our resources, don’t allow people to stress
themselves to campaign.”
“We have our results, each of the unit, we collated
our result and it showed that we have won even with landslide Victory. So the
result they announced, we don’t know where they got it.”
“It’s unfortunate that
APC have removed the independence on INEC, they are no longer independent.
Stealing peoples’ mandate is height of corruption, Edo people have been
deprived of their right to choose who they want to govern them.”
Vanguard
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