AC expresses fears over bye-elections

Adewale Ajayi, Lagos - 25.01.2008

THE Action Congress (AC) has expressed fear that the bye- elections scheduled to hold on Saturday across the country to fill vacant National Assembly seats would be a repeat of the sham experienced in April 2007 general election.

The party, in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the election might turn out to be charade experienced in the council election held last December. According to the party, nothing had happened to give Nigerians the confidence that the country was ready to hold free and fair elections.

“The incompetent and widely partisan chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu, remains in his position, and will definitely collude with his masters in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to ensure victory for them at all cost, if only to justify the party’s so-called landslide victory at the April 2007 polls.

The party wondered what voter’s register the INEC would use to conduct the bye-elections when the same commission had said none was available for the conduct of the council polls.

The party, however, commended its members who, it said, despite the grim electoral environment imposed by the PDP in connivance with the INEC, had summoned the courage to participate in the elections.

The party warned them not to expect anything different from “the mess that was made of the April 2007 general elections and the sham that followed, in the name of council polls.

“If the PDP does not win anywhere during the bye-elections, it means the party has either lost the balance of violence or the people’s will has become so supreme to overwhelm its shenanigans,”the party said.

AC explained the violence being witnessed across the country ahead of the polls - from Oyo state where former Governor Rashidi Ladoja and his supporters were attacked to Akwa Ibom state, where 11 people were killed -is an indication of what people should expect on Saturday.