Governors Buy AK-47 Rifles For Youths To Rig Elections – Oshiomhole

The Deputy Director-General of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Organisation, APCPCC, Adams Oshiomhole, has accused former and current governors in the country of buying AK-47 rifles for unemployed youths to cause violence and disrupt elections in order to rig.

The former APC National Chairman stated this during the citizens elections dialogue hosted by YIAGA Africa and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with Channels TV.

“Police sending two or ten men to a location doesn’t necessarily guarantee security. I’ve been a victim of election rigging which was why I launched ‘one man one vote’ because if it’s about survival of the fittest, people like me can’t get elected,” said Oshiomhole, who was twice governor of Edo State, south south Nigeria.

He argued that, “The ingredients for free and fair elections don’t just lie with INEC. Escorting the materials to make sure they’re not hijacked by hoodlums is a function of security and the president has a duty to ensure that the security forces are not only briefed that they mustn’t be partisan but that they have the support and logistics they need to discharge their responsibilities.”

The former governor explained that every political leader must have a role to play to ensure a free, fair and credible election, noting that, “We must also know that we (political leaders) have a role to play. If I go to my polling unit and say ‘it’s not a do-or-die affair, let the people vote freely’ and Dino (Melaye) says the same thing in his unit, our followers will not resort to violence.”

Melaye is one of the spokesmen of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Council, PDPPCC, and was a member of the House of Representative and Senator on the platform of both the PDP and APC.

On his experience as governor, Oshiomhole said, “When I was a governor and I mean this, you can ask (former) President Goodluck Jonathan, I did say at a meeting at the villa that sometimes governors contribute to election violence because AK-47 is not as cheap as buying akara.

“And when you see many young men who are unemployed wielding AK-47s, who is providing them? So the political leadership has a responsibility, we need to take that responsibility,” Oshiomhole said.

He pointed out that, “If 500 voters choose to resort to violence, how many policemen do you want to deploy?

“Let us accept that as political parties, we agree that in the course of the campaigning, at every point, we must emphasise that this election is about freedom to choose and that what is more important is the process, not even the outcome.

“Let us resort to telling our leaders that they must preach violent free elections.

“I insist that all of us here have a duty. Nigeria is much more than the sub total of all the political parties,” he emphasised.