PARIS OLYMPIC GAMES
Barring any last minute logistic hitch, the Kogi State supplementary elections for West Senatorial District and Ajaokuta Federal Constituency respectively will hold on Saturday, November 30.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which announced this, said, “it is ready to conduct the supplementary elections’’.
Meanwhile, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has said that the people are already horror-stricken by what happened in the governorship election, which it described as “ civil war’’.
Thugs in a political party garb had locked up Mrs Salome Abuh, Women Leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in her husband’s house, doused it with petrol and set fire to it on November 18 at Ochadamu in Ofu Local Government Area of the state.
Some “youths’’ in a post-election victory wild celebration of Gov. Yahaya Bello of All Progressives Congress (APC) had stormed the community and unleashed violence on the “opposition’’.
Also, Senator Dino Melaye lost his cousin to the shooting at polling units on the election day among other casualties.
The State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. James Apam, at a stakeholders meeting in Lokoja, said the court had ordered the rerun election in 22 polling units, while election will be conducted in 53 polling units where the result of election was cancelled as a result of over-voting.
As usual, he said: “All the logistics for the elections are ready. All non-sensitive materials are also available.
“Sensitive materials will be ready on the eve of election and sent to the polling units immediately.’’
Apam disclosed that in spite of the shoddiness in the November 16 polls, university lecturers would still be used as returning officers and NYSC members as ad hoc staff for the rerun.
However, worried by the fatalities recorded in the last election, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has urged INEC and the security agencies to “live above board’’ in the discharge of their duties to avert the electoral fraud that marred the just-concluded gubernatorial poll in the state.
CAN’s Director of National Issues, the Rev. Samuel Owolabi, condemned the bloody violence, intimidation, gunshots, ballot box- snatching and vote-buying that characterized the just-concluded governorship election in the state.
“As it is now, people are demoralised to come out to vote because of fear of being killed. They no longer have confidence in INEC and security operatives.
“What we witnessed during the just-concluded governorship election was civil war,” he said.
Persecondnews reports that Melaye of PDP and Mr Smart Adeyemi of APC and former PDP senator, have gone to the trenches ahead of the election.
Adeyemi, according to INEC, was leading, but was disputed by the PDP and other stakeholders.
Leave a comment