By Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Peter Obi, has described Saturday’s supplementary governorship election in Kano as scandalous, saying the country is setting a bad precedent by institutionalising thuggery.
Obi, in a statement Monday, said that what happened in Kano also amounted to licensing the youths for violence.
The former governor of Anambra State also questioned the integrity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who was quick to recognise and acknowledge election results from a process where machete-carrying miscreants took charge of the process.
According to him, “We are now institutionalising thuggery and rigging as process of coming into power which is very dangerous precedents for our country.”
Obi stressed that proceeds in the name of results from what happened in Kano made the entire electoral process ridiculous and shameful.
He noted that the Nigeria police, which mobilised top officers and men to Kano State to secure the state during the election, but later turned around and allowed political thugs to control the process, owe Nigerians and election observers a lot of explanations on what happened.
Obi stated that Nigeria further ridiculed and made itself a laughing stock in thinking that the kind of process witnessed in Kano at the weekend would produce a leadership that could grow the state.
He warned that by what went on in Kano at the weekend, “we are dangerously bequeathing to this society a trend that is bound to consume not only our youths but the entire country”.
He said: “If India with over 800 million voters can conduct election without losing such calibre of people, if President Buhari and APC could come into power in 2015 without such senseless loss of lives, why should this be the case now?”
