The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) have passed a vote-of-no-confidence on the acting Inspector-General Police, Mohammed Adamu; and the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, ahead of the Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections.
The opposition political parties based their position on alleged intelligence that the ruling All Progressives Congress and the Presidency have perfected plans to rig the elections through the skewed deployment of security forces and using them to deny the people their will to choose their leaders.
Their national spokesman, Imo Ugochinyere, made the position of the opposition parties known in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja on Thursday.
Copies of the statement were also submitted to the British High Commissioning Nigeria, United States Embassy in Nigeria, European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS as well as the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission.
Ugochinyere claimed that part of the strategy to be adopted is for security agents to shoot any citizen who tries to stop them from rigging the election and subsequently label such person as ballot box snatcher so as to escape any liability.
The other strategies they want to use to compromise the elections, he said, included intimidation and harassment of voters, blocking of opposition agents from collation centres, arrest of opposition leaders, party agents and journalists among others.
He cited some photographs trending online depicting policemen and soldiers in open show of partisanship as some of the proofs that the nation’s security forces have been compromised.
He said, “It is based on the foregoing that the Nigerian opposition hereby passes a nationwide vote-of-no-confidence on the Acting Inspector-General of Police and the Chief of Army Staff.
“Both officers have shown without doubt that they are card-carrying members of the APC by the actions they have taken so far.
“Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai has been promised that he would continue in office for years as the Chief of Army Staff if the President wins despite his tenure being extended after he was due for retirement.
“The Inspector-General of Police has a similar promise also and has been sucked in.
“This option is the only available rigging option now for the APC. We have busted all their previous plots and are still going to smash this one.”
Ugochinyere boasted that there is nothing Buhari and his party can do to escape defeat in the coming elections.
He added, “President Buhari is desperate; he knows defeat is staring him in the face. He has only himself to blame for frittering away the massive goodwill of the people. He will be defeated and there is nothing he can do about it.
“Hence, he has turned the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian Police into the most potent threats to free and fair elections in Nigeria.
“Having so emerged, we call on the international community to hold the duo of the Chief of Army Staff and the Inspector-General of Police personally responsible for the loss of innocent lives during the election by reason of them directing their men to execute the unlawful, undemocratic and draconian orders of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“President Buhari is waiting to cut the last string of democracy in Nigeria. Citizens must rally to protect democracy. Voters must wait at the end of voting for counting of votes and declaration of results and must escort the result sheets to the collation centres.
“They must deploy the Opposition Code 20 to the fullest. Any armed intruder sighted at any polling unit and interfering with the electoral process is on illegal mission and must be resisted and stopped from carrying out their dastardly actions.”
Ugochinyere further claimed that the opposition parties are in possession of evidence that Army and police commanders in many states, including Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Kwara, Imo, Delta and Benue, have been holding strategy meetings with APC leaders in those States on how to undermine credible elections.
“People’s power must triumph over the wicked people in power. Defeating President Buhari at the ballot is a patriotic duty Nigerians must carry out and there is no margin of error,” he concluded. (Punch)