The Southwest Elders Caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has warned that Nigeria’s nascent democracy may collapse unless the fairness and equity is allowed to take place in the polity.

The elders also submitted “that the Nigerian union has crossed a crucial threshold in the continuous struggle for a summative identity and national wholeness.”

In a communique signed by Chief Olabode George, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, Mr. Uthman Shodipe-Dosunmu among others, the elders said: “Surely we do not pray for the collapse of our democracy. But we urge for vigilance and constant monitoring of the affairs of the state. We submit that the Nigerian union has crossed a crucial threshold in the continuous struggle for a summative identity and national wholeness.”

They insisted that “the recent general election was fraught with screaming flaws, deliberate sabotage, treachery and outright banditry,” adding that “the Nigerian union deserves peace, harmony, equity and a strengthened bond of brotherhood that will galvanise our country to greater development and prosperity,” even as they called on “all elders, patriots, people of goodwill across our land to speak out with holy courage and boldness about the perceived wrongs and the glaring imbalances in our polity.”

The PDP caucus resolved that the present electoral processes wherein result sheets are physically carried across the country are absolutely primitive and apparently susceptible to all kinds of distortions.

“The apparent distortions in Yobe, Borno, Rivers, Lagos, Adamawa, Kano and several other states has diminished the purity of a fledgling democratic state,” they added.

They also complained about the situation in the PDP, saying: “We note with great annoyance the mischievous interventions of the PDP national organ as they impose fly-by-night candidates on the states, thereby provoking electoral failures and rank disasters. We insist that we will never again tolerate the interference of outsiders in the affairs of the Southwest.

“We urge the PDP leadership to return to the First Principle of fairness, equity and justice. The party must embrace men and women of selflessness and instinctive sacrifice rather than encourage little people who merely serve the hour. We enjoin the PDP national leadership to start rebuilding the broken places and start rectifying the wrongs so as to heal the still festering sores.”

They therefore said: “We believe and trust in the indivisibility of the Nigerian union where merit prevails over mediocrity, where justice triumphs over inequity, where tribe and sectarian differences are promptly discarded for the greater good of the country.”

•Sourced from a THISDAY report

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