- as Ogbara paid pipers swing to action ahead Saturday poll
In the midst of much counsel from within and outside Nigeria that all actors in the Saturday 25th February national election, play by the rules and give peace a chance as eligible electorates takes to the polls to make their well informed choices, the Kosofe Federal Constituency is at the moment enmeshed in a new attempt to subvert the electoral process as the All Progressives Congress candidate Mrs. Kafilat Ogbara allegedly had a covert parley with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Ad-hoc staffs assigned to Kosofe local government area at her resident in Magodo.
It will be recalled that the Lagos INEC very early on Wednesday morning, commenced the movement of sensitive materials as well as the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System BVAS to the 20 local governments recognised by the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria in order to make the process seamless.
Consequent upon this the APC candidate in question knowing fully well that the concerned officials would have been deployed to their areas of operation, invited the officials to her residence many keen watcher of the democratic process already smelled a rat and are crying foul that she did this in order to influence the process in her favour, which is clearly unconstitutional.
Earlier today Thursday 23rd of February the AbdulWaheed Odunuga Campaign organisation of the New Nigeria People’s Party candidate for the Kosofe Federal House of Representatives issued a statement jointly signed by the organisation’s Director General Barr. Kehinde Agbedina and the Secretary Musiliu Isiaka.
It tends to sensitize the public and raise consciousness of the concerned authorities on recent development and the alleged untoward conducts of Mrs Ogbara which might hamper the smooth electoral process envisaged by the Commission.
Initially the organisation has notified the commission and security agencies about the various intimidation and vicious attacks mounted on supposed polling agents of NNPP, to an extent that Ogbara’s foot soldiers allegedly go as far as confronting the families of the concerned persons, to vilify and bar them from coming out for their candidate- Comrade Abdulwaheed Odunuga at the Saturday election.
The APC candidate also tried to pay her way through having discovered that she does not enjoy the support of the majority in the constituency.
The said statement read in part: “We want to use this medium to appeal and call on the Independent National Electoral Commission to take appropriate measures to ensure a free and fair elections are conducted at every registration area or polling unit all over the country, as promised and expected considering some early developments in Kosofe towards the elections.
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“We have been reliably informed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Mrs. Kafilat Ogbara had met with the Commission’s Ad-hoc staffs assigned to Kosofe local government area at her resident in Magodo, to seek for their supports and collaboration for partial favours through acts that will be aiding and abetting electoral favouritism to the APC.
“These said INEC staffers were handsomely induced with foods and other largesse and were also asked to share their Bank account details accordingly.
“We want to also appeal to law enforcement agencies, especially the Department of State Services (DSS) and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to ensure all the INEC Staff and Ad-hoc Staff are properly profiled.
“To ensure they act fairly and justly towards discharging their respective duties and not receiving undue favours from politicians, that will discredit or arm the reputation of the independence and objectivity of INEC, while those found wanting are properly investigated to face the wrath of the law.
“We also want to use this medium to call on our supporters all over the wards to capture all election irregularities and anomalies with their phone to aid probes, investigations and litigation processes.
“ We cordially call on all electorates to ensure they carry out their civic duties in orderly manner, as the security operatives will be all out to ensure the electoral activities are not interrupted.
“As the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has ordered the operatives to only be ruthless with those that plans to disrupt the electoral process accordingly.”
The Kosofe constituents and eligible registered voters are however, opened to playing by their conscience and voting their right choice on Saturday as their franchise still remain intact.