Buhari’s Ballot Box Threat Aimed At Scaring Voters – Sowore

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The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, says President Muhammadu Buhari’s threat to ballot box snatchers is aimed at scaring away voters on election day.

Sowore said if
Buhari was sincere about stopping electoral malpractice, he would have
focused on the sponsors of ballot box snatchers and not the actors only.

The AAC candidate said this during an interview with our correspondent on Wednesday.

The
activist said Buhari had shown that he was still a dictator as he made
no mention of arresting and prosecuting ballot box snatchers but went
ahead to suggest killing.

He said if the President was really
serious about stopping electoral malpractice, he would have stopped his
part from engaging in vote-buying.

Sowore said, “General Buhari
is clearly still a military dictator at heart. Ballot box snatching is a
terrible offence, but how could anyone ask for an offender to be killed
without recourse to the law? Are there no courts? Shouldn’t an offender
be charged to court first?

“It is ironic that the same person
who is quick to ask for ballot box snatchers to be killed, has no
problems with heading a party that engages in massive vote-buying and
rigging as we saw in Ekiti and Osun.

“While Buhari called for the
ballot box snatchers to be killed, what about the people who sent them
to snatch the ballot boxes? What about the politicians who paid them to
cause chaos at the polls? By raising the spectre of violence at polling
centres and encouraging law enforcement agencies to shoot during
elections, the President is essentially scaring people away from the
polls.

“He knows that ballot rigging has been a sad but
persistent feature of Nigerian elections. This threat is not really
directed at ballot box snatchers, but a deliberate attempt to scare
people away from the polls. I call on all Nigerians not to be deterred
or scared away from the polls.”

The Sahara Reporters publisher,
who also lambasted the Independent National Electoral Commission for
postponing the polls, said he already knew INEC would delay the
elections and he had prepared adequately.

He said the All
Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party were the biggest
beneficiaries of the postponement because they were the richest parties
in the country.

When asked if he had the N800m needed to deploy
polling agents in all the polling units and voting points across the
country, Sowore said he did not need such a an amount because people
were willing to volunteer.

Sowore added, “We are a true
grassroots organisation. The ‘TakeitBack’ movement and the African
Action Congress are present in every geopolitical zone and in every
state. We will have agents in every state and in most of the polling
units in the nation.

“We introduced digital methods into the
agent recruitment exercise. In addition to the physical compilation of
the names of those interested in being party agents, we developed online
methods and an app that allowed us to mobilise agents as well.

“Unlike
the APC and the PDP that will pay about N5,000 to N10,000 per agent and
spend between N600m and N1.2bn on them across all the polling units in
the country, we are a volunteer driven organisation.”

The former
student union leader, who fought for the mandate of the acclaimed winner
of the June 12, 1993 election, MKO Abiola, said he was not deterred by
the decision of some of MKO’s children to endorse Buhari following the
President’s decision to declare June 12 as Democracy Day.

He said Buhari did so for political reasons but admitted that it was a good decision.

Sowore
said, “The June 12 struggle was not about Abiola or his family. It was
about moving Nigeria forward. My engagement in that struggle was to
ensure that we had a country where democratic tenets reigned supreme,
where military dictatorship was eliminated and where the Nigerian people
could freely choose their own leaders.

“In all of the 30 years
that I have been involved in the Nigerian political system, I have not
supported persons, but instead I have fought for principles. When
Obasanjo wanted to extend his tenure, I fought against that.”

When
asked if he would accept the result of the election if he loses, Sowore
said he would only do so if the exercise is free and fair.

On
what would be the focus of his administration if elected, Sowore said he
would focus on security, restructuring, infrastructure and the
enthronement of democratic norms.

He said he would form a shadow cabinet once he is declared winner and this would allow for an easy transition.

Sowore said, “I have developed a 10-point agenda built on three pillars of security, self sufficiency and sustainability. The 10-point agenda addresses problems in the areas of security, power, infrastructure, corruption, economy and jobs, restructuring, health care, education, agriculture and tourism and the first letter of each program spells out SPICER HEAT.

Source:- Punchng

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