The Social Democratic Party (SDP) Presidential Candidate, Mr Donald Etim Duke has described the postponement of the presidential election scheduled for Saturday, February 16th as a coup against Nigeria.
Speaking
with newsmen in his resident in Calabar, Duke regretted the
postponement, saying that the postponement was a national embarrassment
and disgrace.
“The folks have come all over the world to observe
and monitor our elections, Nigerians have travelled length and breadth
to go and participate in the civic responsibilities, all of the sudden,
our so-called Independence National Electoral Commission (INEC)
postponed the elections, it is totally unheard of.
“You don’t
postpone election like that, not even a week before the elections but
four hours. Now, if you are a participant in this election, you have
your agents spread throughout the length and breadth of this country,
you financially empowered them because they are going to take money for
accommodation, feedings and all sort of things, then last minutes, this
happened, all that money is wasted, you got to start all over again.
“It
is a trick, well scripted and it has been taken to the next level, this
trick was to breed the opposition financially, PDP started this
nonsense but this government has taken it to the next level, theirs was a
week before the election but this guy has taken it to four hours into
the election.
“We all know that the government in power has
unlimited access to finance but the opposition does not, so by the time
you get to election day, the opposition would be exhausted or barely
able to go through the process again, they have only one week to raise
funds, you are not talking about pittance here, we are talking about
millions and billions of naira because we are talking about National
elections” he said.
Mr Duke said, “It is impossible for INEC
to do this without consultation with government, usually; government can
even instigate them to do this for one reason or the other. It is sad, I
just imagine, the way the rest of the world will look at us.
“There
is nowhere that INEC could postpone the election without collaboration
with the federation. The action was an international disgrace, we are a
nation so compromised, our sycophancy has taken another form, we don’t
speak the truth to power that be” he stated.
He attributed the
postponement to the incompetence of the National Chairman, “People have
travelled the bad road, security is questionable, all sort of things
have happened, yet elections was postponed.
“INEC had four
years to conduct election, they know that every four years, they have to
conduct election, nothing new, they know this, they started asking for
money last year, that is stupid, you waited to the last moment, they
have no excuse whatsoever, if they can’t move the materials, there is
aeroplane or helicopter, this is 21st century for goodness.
“This
is where we find ourselves, regardless how well the election will be
conducted, next week, if it happened at all, the result will not be
accepted by all, because it has already been contaminated; if those that
were smooth were not accepted then imagine what this will be.
On
the outburst of Kaduna state governor regarding body bags, Mr Duke
said, “Kaduna State Governor’s comment was a loose talk and that should
not have come from the State Chief Executive and high ranking member of
APC, he is a great friend of mine but he gets too emotional in his
speech, he needs to be more cultured when addressing issues of those
nature,” he said.
Source:- Dailypostng
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