10th February, 2018
Press Release
Loading ...Anambra Governorship: INEC Boss Vindicates UPP On Monetization Of Votes On Election Day
The Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman, Professor
Mahamood Yakubu has vindicated the United Progressive Party (UPP)
position that the November 18, 2017 Anambra State Governorship
Election was characterized by massive vote buying especially All
Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), All Progressives Congress (APC)
and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that set up shops at virtually all
the Polling Units to bid for and buy votes. The Party noted that the
difference in votes won by these three parties was in their individual
capacity to out-bid one another at different places as the highest
bidder always wins in such bazaar.
Professor Mahmood Yakubu decried open votes buying at polling
stations, lamenting that “Votes of citizens should be determine by who
wins in an election. Our democracy must never be on sale in an open
market. It is the will of the people that should determine who wins,”
and seeks Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
collaboration to address this and also monitor campaign funds.
The unfortunate aspect of the perfidy in the Anambra Governorship
election is that this show of shame took place in the full glare of
all the security agencies that covered the election. If this dangerous
dimension to winning election is allowed to spread across the country
then our democracy is doomed. The much expected 2019 general election
will be a mere charade.
As the UPP National Chairman, Chief Dr. Chekwas Okorie succinctly
pointed out in a press conference on the sham called Anambra
Governorship Election on 22nd November, 2017 in Abuja, “The
implication of this unfortunate development is that politicians will
consider it wasteful and unnecessary to promote their parties
manifestoes and canvass their blueprints for governance during
campaigns in order to sell their party and candidature to the
electorate. Politicians will consider that all that they have to do is
to amass wealth, set up shops at Polling Booths, out-bid their rivals
and wait to be congratulated and celebrated for a landslide victory.
If this is allowed to gain root, then criminals, money launderers,
treasury looters and their likes will take over the political space,
occupy juicy elective and appointive offices in Nigeria from the next
democratic encounter in 2019. In that way, democracy in Nigeria will
definitely assume a new and ridiculous definition. Nigeria will be
ruined.”
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo support for State Police as panacea to
the perennial security challenge in the country is in tandem with the
UPP position as provided in Chapter 6 of the party’s Manifesto which
states: “UPP shall promote and establish State Police and Community
Policing. UPP shall make every State citizen and member of Community a
stakeholder in the matter of State and Community Security. UPP notes
that the role of State Governors as the Chief Security Officers of
their States is a relatively empty formula.”
Professor Osinbajo’s statement that “We cannot realistically police a
country the size of Nigeria centrally from Abuja. State Police and
other Community policing methods are clearly the way to go,” is in
consonance with UPP’s clear policy on State Police.
It is manifest that when UPP intervenes on crucial national issues, it
is done out of national interest and necessity.
–
CHIEF OGBUEHI DIKE
NATIONAL PUBLICITY SECRETARY, UPP
