The All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the Police of acting out the script of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Saturday’s governorship election in Anambra, by arresting election monitors from Osun State and labelling them as thugs.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Friday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party claimed that the report that a ‘crack team’ of the Police in Imo State had arrested 180 “armed hoodlums carrying fake voters cards, official identity cards of INEC and independent Observer identity cards” is nothing but tales by the moonlight.
“Those who were arrested by the increasingly partisan Police are election monitors from Osun State, who are members of the Justice and Equality Organisation, an INEC-accredited election monitoring NGO”, APC said.
“With INEC having trained key officials of the accredited election monitoring NGOs, those trained are now training their members in readiness for the election. Those trained by INEC are in Owerri.
“Those whom the Police have labelled as thugs are members of the Justice and Equality Organisation. They are in Owerri for training ahead of the election. They chose Owerri because of its proximity to Anambra and its affordable hotel costs.
“None of them is a member of the APC, despite the insinuation by the Police, and none is armed, because you don’t need guns to monitor elections. Any weapon exhibited by the Police must have been procured by them to justify their gaffe. The only offence that the arrested election monitors have committed, in the eyes of the Police, is that they are from a staunchly APC State with zero tolerance for the do-nothing, bumbling PDP”.
Meanwhile, the party called for extra vigilance from all Nigerians in general and the party’s members and supporters in particular, in order to thwart any attempt by the Police and their collaborators to ruin Saturday’s election.
It argued that the need for vigilance has been heightened by the fact that key institutions of state that should ensure a level playing ground for all parties in the election appear to have been compromised, “going by the blatant partisanship
of the Police and the seeming inability of INEC to prosecute electoral offenders, including Willie Obiano of APGA, who has been proven to have registered multiple times.”
It implored all the APC agents for Saturday’s polls to pay particular attention to the accreditation process.
“In line with the INEC Manual for Election Officials, the number of accredited voters must be counted and announced loudly for all to hear. Also, the number of voters in the Register of Voters in each polling unit must be announced loudly”, APC warned.
“Then the number of voters in the register and the number of accredited voters must be entered in Form EC8A and/or Form EC8A (1) before voting starts.
“None of our agents should sign the result sheet without accurate numbers of voters in the register and the number of accredited voters being duly recorded in the necessary columns in the Forms”.
The party further urged INEC to ensure that Saturday’s election is free, fair and transparent, while also imploring security agencies not to allow themselves to be used to hinder the right of the people to elect their own leaders, because the world will be keenly monitoring the election on Saturday.
