Kogi/Edo/Ondo Polls: PDP Praises US Over Visa Ban On ‘Election Riggers’

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday, commended the United States of America for the visa ban it placed on some Nigerians it considered to have undermined the country’s electoral process.

The PDP, in a statement by its Spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, also urged the US to include the family members and the assets of such “anti-democratic agents who have destroyed the credibility of our electoral process.”

The US’ Department of State had, on Monday, placed a visa ban on certain Nigerians for undermining elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states, as well as the “run up to the September and October 2020 Edo and Ondo state elections.”

However, the country did not mention the names of those it placed the visa ban on.

Ologbondiyan also asked America to invite the European Union as well as other nations, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, to impose similar sanctions against electoral violators who were bent on destroying the country’s democracy.

He argued that if the visa ban was taken across the world, it would serve as a final warning to the leaders of “All Progressives Congress (APC), as well as compromised security and INEC officials, being used by the APC to perpetrate electoral violence and manipulations.”

The PDP spokesman said: “It is instructive to note that this announcement by the US, which reinforces the determination for resistance in Nigeria, is also an unambiguous cautionary to the sacked national chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, the APC governorship candidate in Edo, Osagie Ize-Iyamu and his Ondo counterpart, Rotimi Akeredolu, over their plots to use violence to undermine the sanctity of the Edo and Ondo state governorship elections.

“Our party asserts that the position of the US Department of State is a confirmation that 2019 general elections, the November 2019 Kogi governorship election, as well as other elections under the Buhari regime were massively rigged with unrestrained violence against the people and rampant manipulations by the APC and their compromised security agents.

“The world is aware of how our compatriots were killed and maimed in Kano and various parts of our nation in the 2019 elections; how collation of results were compromised by relations of APC candidates and how compromised security operatives were used to frustrate the will of the people.”

He added that citizens of the country knew those, who he claimed unleashed violence to rig the November 2019 Kogi state governorship poll and the burning alive of a woman, Salome Abuh, and as well, altered election result figures to make themselves winners.

According to him, the ban is a firm support for the party’s resistance to plots by Oshiomhole and Ize-Iyamu, claiming that they have been overheating the polity in Edo state with serial attacks on other political parties.

He accused the duo of Oshiohmole and Ize-Iyamu of assembling thugs, cultists, fake policemen as well as their ‘tigers and lions” who they publicly instructed to invade polling centres to unleash violence and undermine the electoral process.

He concluded: “Our party charges INEC and all security agencies to note that the world is watching and as such strive to act by the rules, knowing that a shameful end awaits those who undermine the will of the people.

“The PDP, in commending the United States, urges Nigerians, particularly in Edo and Ondo state to remain at alert and strengthen their resolve by voting and firmly defending their votes from the polling and collation centres to the final declaration of results, with the determination to unbridle the instrument of resistance to anybody, anybody at all, who attempts to undermine their will at any level of the process.”

The Edo governorship election comes up on September 19th, while that of Ondo is scheduled for October 10th.