•Says going to court by losers, waste of money

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned the sporadic violence, political thuggery and electoral heists that characterised the off-cycle elections in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi States which took place last Saturday.

HURIWA which regretted that despite all the assurances by the Service Chiefs, including the National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, that there will be peaceful and law-based polls in those three states, the opposites were the cases in Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa.

The group alleged that ballots boxes were viciously snatched and, in Imo State, even armed police operatives were participants in the violent snatching of ballots boxes and even youths of Ikeduru caught a uniformed senior Police officer carting ballots boxes away and handed him over to the police.

HURIWA condemned the security forces in Imo State who supervised the violence unleashed on the Labour Party (LP) agent in Imo State, Calistus Ihejiagwa, who was in the early hours of November 12 beaten and bundled out of the Imo State Collation Centre in Owerri, the state capital.

HURIWA stated that it was criminal that the security agencies whose operatives were on ground at the collation centre actually permitted the dehumanisation of the Labour party's Mr.Ihejiagwa who was protesting the results being presented at the collation center even as he argued that the results collated from the local government areas that were being presented did not tally with the ones on the Result Viewing Portal (IREV).

HURIWA stated that it was only in a state's permitted terror-prone environment whereby state apparatuses are converted to attackers of political opposition as is the case in Imo State so much so that the Labour Party's agent Mr. Ihejiagwa repeatedly said he had a petition to submit before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but he was shut down by the Returning Officer for the election, Prof Abayomi Fashina, who said it was not in his purview to receive petitions. Ihejiagwa was viewed as an interruption by his colleagues who subsequently bundled him out of the collation centre at 5 a.m while collation continued.

HURIWA also condemned the reported widespread manipulations of the electoral processes in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi States and wondered why the influence of cash- for -votes was still in practice during elections so much so that operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) successfully arrested 14 suspected vote buyers and confiscated millions of naira from the suspects in Otueke, Adawari playgrounds in Bayelsa and at various polling units in Imo and Kogi.

EFCC Spokesperson Dele Oyewale said this in a statement at the weekend in Abuja. According to him, the suspects were arrested on Saturday in intelligence-driven operations that commenced several days before the ongoing governorship elections in the three states. “Also, a total sum of N11,040,000, comprising N9,310,00 intercepted from suspected vote buyers and sellers in Bayelsa, and N1,730,000 intercepted from electoral fraud suspects across Imo State, were recovered from them.

HURIWA applauded the EFCC for the deployment of its personnel to monitor the Saturday’s governorship elections in the three states to prevent politicians and their agents from engaging in vote buying during the elections. HURIWA has once more called on Nigerians to respect themselves, uphold their human dignity and reject the temptations to sell their votes to politicians during elections as were the cases in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi last weekend. “Any potential voter who sells his/her vote is simply a person who has willingly sold himself/herself into political servitude because the governor who goes into office that he bribed his way to attain, will focus exclusively on how he can recoup his massive cash investment during his campaign and election. On no account should a citizen negotiate or accept cash for votes. This is a very dangerous social evil that must be stamped out by every means available to the law enforcement agencies. We therefore encourage the EFCC and ICPC to upgrade their operations during polls so as to stamp out the evil of cash for votes in Nigeria,” the group said in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko.

HURIWA condemned the inability of the security agencies, especially the Police and the military to proactively minimise the incidents of violence that characterised the elections in the three States, citing the kidnapping of INEC officials in Bayelsa as one aspect to show that there were security failures witnessed during the exercise on Saturday. “So why did all the service chiefs inundate Nigerians with promises that the off-cycle gubernatorial polls will be peaceful? Did these service chiefs deliberately fed Nigerians with falsehoods and lies? So what happened? How come that even in Imo State, the police operatives and ebubeagu were deployed by the incumbent administration to manipulate the election in many local government areas of the state?” the group queried.

HURIWA recalled that INEC on Saturday announced that one of its Supervisory Presiding Officers, who was abducted at the Amassoma jetty in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, on the eve of the governorship election, has been released.

HURIWA has also cited the examples of snatching of ballots boxes and diversion of election materials in many wards in Okigwe, Ideato North and Orlu senatorial zone to demonstrate that the poll in Imo State was systematically manipulated by INEC whose resident electoral commissioner in Imo State is the biological sister of the National deputy chairman of the All Progressive Congress which is the party of the incumbent governor who sought re-election.

HURIWA recalled that it actually got reports of the widespread rigging of the governorship poll in Imo state from election observers on ground long before the candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Saturday’s Imo governorship election, Sen. Athan Achonu, called for a cancellation of results from some polling units over alleged irregularities.

HURIWA recalled that Senator Achonu made the call while speaking with newsmen in his hometown, Umulumo, in Ehime Mbano council area of Imo, on Saturday. He said that agents of his party returned with disturbing reports of hijacking of ballot boxes and other electoral materials as well as vote buying.

He, Senator Athan Achonu added that the LP had officially written to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for requisite action and called for the cancellation of results emanating from the affected locations.

HURIWA however, is of the opinion that it will amount to time wasting and a colossal misuse of resources for politicians who are unable to influence the outcome of the serially rigged and manipulated off-cycle elections, to file cases before the election petitions Tribunal because the judiciary is a captive of cash-and-carry judgments which work to deny Nigerians of transparent and fair electoral processes through subterfuge.

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