The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has raised an alarm over alleged illegal occupation and provocative besiegement of Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, Akwa-Ibom and Cross River states by the military ahead of the March 9, governorship and State Assembly elections.
PDP national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan while addressing journalists Thursday explained that, “This illegal operation is to further militarize the South -south zone, use soldiers to suppress voters and re-enact the massive rigging of polls for the All Progressives Congress (APC), as was done in the widely discredited February 23 presidential election.”
Ologbondiyan who warned that those who sow the wind should also be ready to reap the whirlwind added that, “It is clear that after using military to unleash violence, alter results and muscle out fabricated 25 percent ballot for President Muhammadu Buhari across the South South states and other PDP strongholds, the APC now wants to use the military to fight our governors, suppress our members and forcefully take over our states.”
He also accused the APC leaders from the South -south of going around boasting that the military will use violence to give them governorship election triumph, the same way it did during the Presidential election, where innocent Nigerians were brutalized and murdered.
“Nigerians are witnesses to how 13 persons were murdered in Akuku-Toru local government in Rivers state, in addition to those killed in Ahoada East, Ahoada West and Emohua Local Government Areas during the Presidential election,” he said.
Ologbondiyan also added that, ” The public already knows how the Minister of Transport and the Director General of the Buhari Campaign Organization, Rotimi Amaechi, used soldiers to hold an INEC official hostage, changed the election results and allocated fabricated figures for President Buhari. In Akwa-Ibom state, Senator Godswill Akpabio has been using soldiers to suppress and harass the people, in spite of assurances by INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, that the military will not be involved in elections”.
PDP spokesperson alleged that, “In Bayelsa state, soldiers were freely used against the people. In the process the photographer to the State governor was murdered. The Deputy Commissioner of Police in the state was even kidnapped. In Brass, East Senatorial district of the state, it was a war situation as the military took over the electoral process and even declared winners. “
