Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti
For not having constitutionally recognised candidates for various elective positions in Zamfara State ahead of the 2019 elections, a former governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of plotting to hide under the killings in the state by bandits to impose emergency rule on the state.
Fayose said: “The All Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government cannot hide under its own failure to secure the lives of Nigerians to achieve its selfish partisan agenda.”
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recently barred the APC from fielding candidates for the governorship, state and federal legislative elections owing to delay by the party in the submission of lists of candidates.
Fayose, the South-west Coordinator of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council, alleged that the plot was a response to the insistence of INEC not to allow the APC to field candidates for the 2019 general election in Zamfara State as a result of failure to comply with the Electoral Act.
In a statement personally signed by the former governor Wednesday, he alleged that the federal government’s plot was aimed at paving the way for a fresh electoral process in the state so that APC can field candidates.
“With the emergency rule, there will only be Presidential and National Assembly elections in the state in February next year while governorship and state House of Assembly elections will be postponed till May,” he said.
He advised the federal government to admit its failure and apologise to the people of Zamfara State, who were left at the mercy of bandits, noting that “using the killings to achieve political goal is not only wicked but inhuman”.
Fayose said the federal government must be reminded that “under the PDP government of Dr Goodluck Jonathan, emergency rule was declared in three states in the North-east without dismantling democratic institutions”.
The former governor also urged the Zamfara State Governor Abdul-aziz Yari Abubakar to stand up for his people and democracy so as to save the country from going under, adding: “I’m aware that the governor is abroad and I advise that he should return home. This is the time for him to be a man and stand in defence of his people rather than standing with their oppressors.”
He called on well meaning Nigerians to prevail on the APC-led federal government to avoid jeopardising democracy in the country by going ahead with its plot to manipulate the 2019 general election like it was done in the Ekiti and Osun States’ governorship elections.
