The former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Comrade Timi Frank has warned against what he described as impending anarchy looming in the six Niger Delta states orchestrating by the ruling government at the center by working in connivance with the Nigerian Army to perpetrate mayhem and disenfranchise Nigerians in the region.
In the said looming crisis in Niger Delta region, Frank fingered President Muhammadu Buhari, Chief of Army staff, National Chairman of APC, Minister of Transport among others.
Frank, who recalled how he raised series of alarms in the wake to the February 23rd Presidential elections, informing Nigerians about the evil plot by the APC to suppress voters and intimidate citizens in opposition strongholds (particularly in the Niger Delta), said the military personnel were used as an alibi in carrying out the heinous crimes on the citizens because of its dire desperation in controlling the oil-rich regions.
In a statement signed Friday in Abuja, Frank said the recent invasion of a paramount ruler and highness of Okrika, Chief Ateke Tom in a commando-style without any prior provocation, proved to the height of desperation and chaos in the wake to the state elections.
“This worrisome trend is about to rear it’s ugly head again, this time headed by the presidency itself and the military authorities. The recent statements credited to President Muhammadu Buhari in Your, Akwa Ibom state, suggesting that the senatorial elections may have been rigged because it’s candidate lost and vowing to reclaim what was lost, rather than approaching the courts for redress, indicts the President and the APC of its desperation in declaring itself winner by any means necessary without recourse to the electoral act in conducting free, fair and credible elections.
“This brazen desperation has taken a new dimension with the recruitment of over 1000 political thugs, distributed across the Niger Delta states, working as undercover Ad Hoc staff with the aid of the military to forcefully disenfranchise the electorates and causing mayhem in units where the ruling party may be loosing. It is instructive also to note, the deliberate arson and destruction of INEC offices and properties as witnessed in Uyo, Akwa Ibom and the indiscriminate arrests of opposition leaders in Port Harcourt all in the Niger Delta.
“In view of the glaring disregard of an existing Supreme Court judgment barring the military from any polling unit during elections, which was initiated by the APC in 2015 and adhered to by the PDP, it will be safe to assume that we have gone back to the dark draconian days by the military junta.”
The political activist, however, called on the people of Niger Delta to come out en masse and vote for their preferred candidate irrespective of fear and intimidation.
“The Ijaw nation and the Niger Delta has never been defeated and cannot, now in a political dispensation. We must resist this new desperation of desecrating our land with the blood of the innocent for the sake of a “wicked cabal’ bent on ravaging the spoils of the region for selfish gains.
“I am calling on the international community and the ICC to be put on notice over the unprovoked attacks on innocent Nigerians by the Nigerian military, working with APC chieftains in causing chaos in opposition strongholds. Let the world bear witness to the outcome of the Gubernatorial elections.”
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