NDP Demands Cancellation of Supplementary Elections

James Sowole in Akure

The Nigeria Democracy Platform (NDP) Saturday demanded cancellation of the supplementary elections held in some states to save the country’s democracy.

NDP, a forum of scholars, ideologies, activists and professionals, said the reports from the supplementary elections indicated that stakeholders have violated the electoral law during the poll.

In a statement by its Director of Administration, Mr. Promise Adewusi and Director of Special Duties, Khadija Yusuf, the coalition said the cancellation would halt the mayhem in Kano, Sokoto, Rivers and kidnap of INEC staff in Benue state.

To save Nigerians from this mockery of democracy, the NDP urged the INEC “to immediately have recourse to the provisions of the electoral act as it relates to violent disruptions of elections by calling off and cancelling the charade floating on the blood of citizens in Kano State until such a time adequate security can be guaranteed in the country as no election is worth the blood of any citizen.”

It noted that after the democratic dispensation entrenched in the country 20 years ago with blood of some fellow citizens, others blood must not be spilled to sustain it.

It said the current Nigeria’s democratic dispensation “was nurtured and watered by the blood of some of our compatriots. We do not need more blood to sustain it in a civilised 21st century where elections are taken as a given in the rest of the modern world.”

It wondered why the military had failed “to provide needed security to ensure free and fair supplementary election since it was not been held simultaneously in all states.

“NDP is therefore scandalised that with all the open threats by partisans in the run up to these elections, inadequate security measures still pervade our electoral landscape.

“What happened to the marching order given to the security forces by the President to ensure a violence free election cycle? Some of the supplementary elections holding today arose as a result of violence in the affected areas on February 23.

“If the INEC and the security forces are not complicit in the bloody affair that is afoot, we would have expected that a better, non partisan security architecture would have been strategically deployed to save the nation these bizarre eruptions. Or were there no lessons learnt from the violence witnessed on February 16 and 23?”

However, the group urged the law enforcement agencies “to immediately apprehend and prosecute all suspected offenders and culprits of this needless mayhem for the sake of justice and stability within the Nigerian polity.”

Related Articles