News
Adamawa
Guber Polls: ACN Raises Alarm over Arrest of Its Members
The Adamawa State Chapter of the Action
Congress of Nigeria [ACN], has raised an alarm over what it
alleged is a grand plan by the state Governor, Murtala Nyako, to
emasculate its members, using men of the Nigeria Police Force,
before the February 12 governorship election in the state.
In a press statement by the party’s State
Publicity Secretary, Yohanna Mathias, and made available to
national accord, it expressed its protest and displeasure over
the spate of arrests and detention of its members and those with
sympathy for the our party in the state.
The statement argued that the arrest of its
members is being used by Nyako, to ventilate his anger over the
refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),
to conduct the said governorship election in the state, while
the curfew placed by the governor was on.
It could be recalled that INEC had
postponed the Adamawa guber poll twice, following the state of
insecurity in Adamawa in recent time .Nyako is said to have been
manipulating the security situation in the state, with a view to
putting it to effective use during the election so as to have an
advantage over his political opponents in both the ACN and the
Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).
“It is obvious that these arrests of our
members and sympathizers on claims of being in possession of a
document or documents of which they are neither its authors or
even of religious persuasion of its contents, is a testimony of
the frustration of Governor Murtala Nyako’s government and its
agents over their failure to secure the support of the
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to conduct the
2012 Governorship election in Adamawa, under curfew”, said the
statement.
It added that “for political reasons, the
Nyako government tried to overstretch the security situation in
the state by putting in place a curfew regime that was
manipulated at will by his government. This unhealthy situation
for the conduct of free and fair election was correctly
understood by INEC, which led to its commendable decision to
twice postpone the governorship election in Adamawa State.
“Adamawa State under the Nyako
administration, has gone down on record as the state government
that has failed in its score card in providing relief to poverty
of its people beyond belief, and in the same breathe woefully
performed beyond redemption, its basic responsibility of
providing security to its citizens to freely exercise their
civic duty of voting in an election. Instead of being apologetic
for the dismal failure in almost all sphere of human endeavour,
the Nyako government is only active in imploring the
instrumentalities of government to harass and intimidate our
members and sympathizers.
“In particular, the services of a section
of the Nigeria Police Force, the State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS)
is being used as a hunting dog to arrest and detain our people
on matters that are unrelated to the mandate of the security
outfit. Using SARS, under the command of its “Man Friday”, the
Nyako government indiscriminately arrest and detains our members
and sympathizers, all in a bid to gradually but systematically
disintegrate our collective will and aspirations in this
endeavour, but that can only make us resolute in our courage of
convictions.
“Predictably, in our petition of December,
2011 to the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and the National
Chairman of INEC, we drew their attention to the underhand
activities of SARS under the command of one Supol Mohammed Ali,
a terror-in-chief to the opposition parties in Adamawa State. We
must state that Mohammed Ali is a ready tool in the hands of
Nyako and a monumental danger to our democracy in Adamawa State.
Meanwhile, the state had ignored deploying its resources to
track down the perpetrators of the heinous Mubi and Yola attacks
or the earlier robbery attacks within the state to hacking down
members of the opposition.
“This old fashioned and uncivilized way of
engaging the opposition will not translate into any political
capital for Governor Nyako and his cronies. The challenge before
the Adamawa State government is how to provide security and
guarantee the safety of lives and property of its citizens, as
they keep a date with 4th February, 2012, to freely cast their
vote in the twice proposed governorship election.
Meanwhile,the party has equally called on
the Governor, “to order for the immediate withdrawal of the
state-sponsored thugs that have taken over the premises of the
Adamawa State House of Assembly. For two months now, members of
the State House of Assembly have been denied access to perform
their legislative functions and this has led to the failure of
the Nyako administration to present its 2012 budget proposals
for legislative accent”.
It stated that “this political recklessness
is an impeachable offence which Nyako is trading into with its
attendant consequences”.
|
