CPC Justifies Killings

Prince Tony Momoh, CPC National Chairman

The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) Monday justified the post-presidential election riots and killings in parts of the North, describing them as a consequence of the win-at-all-cost mentality of the incumbent president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

It has also emerged that the CPC may be heading for a showdown with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over access to the electoral materials with which the party wants to prove its allegation of rigging.

The party also finally commiserated with the relatives of those who lost their lives and property as a result of the violence that occasioned the April 16 presidential election, which led to the death of 10 members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

Addressing judicial correspondents at the party’s secretariat in Abuja, CPC Legal Adviser, Abubakar Malami, said: “To us in the CPC, it is our belief that the breakdown of law and order that ensued after the declaration of President Goodluck Jonathan as the president-elect on the basis of concocted results was the by-product of the determination to win elections by incumbents by any means which has always characterised such actions by historical antecedence.

“Our national history has however taught us that the determination to win elections by incumbents by any means has always given birth to spontaneous reactions in the form of breakdown of law and order.

“We recall the anger of the people of the Western Region in 1965 and the people of Ondo State in 1983 against the use of federal might to dislodge opposition governments in the South-west in favour of the ruling parties at the federal level with concocted results.

“The people spontaneously rose against these barbaric actions of the government. Police stations and houses of prominent NNA and NPN supporters were burnt and many people killed. In the case of Ondo State, the judicial decision that ceded Ondo back to the UPN came within the context of citizens’ determined effort to protect their votes.”

He said CPC believed that the declaration of false results assembled in places other than the polling units during the presidential election was another reminder that the political class “ruling and ruining Nigeria” was not ready to allow electoral reform to work.

Malami said CPC could not sit by and allow electoral misdemeanours wreaking the very foundation of the country’s stability, prosperity and unity to continue unchecked forever.

He observed that since independence, the major political problem of the country had been elections.

According to him, transiting from one government to the other through the ballot box had always been the most difficult aspect of the nation’s democratic experiment.

He recalled that on the two occasions the military took over the reins of power from civilian regimes in 1966 and 1983, election malpractices were cited as justification.

“Yet, till date, we do not seem to have learned our lessons. With every election, including the last presidential election, the electorate continue to lose confidence in the ability of the ballot box to express their will. This is a dangerous trend that must not be allowed to continue, lest we find our country sleepwalking into a disaster that we may not come out of,” he said.

Ironically, CPC won the presidential election in Kaduna and Bauchi – two states where killings and violence erupted after the poll.

Malami cited the polling unit where Jonathan voted to illustrate what he called the level of electoral fraud allegedly perpetrated.

According to him, Osazi Playground Polling Unit had a total number of 908 registered voters. On the April 16 election, only 424 voters turned out to cast their votes, with 413 voting for the president, while 11 ballots were invalidated. This, he said, represented a total of 47 per cent voter turnout in that unit. However, for the rest of Bayelsa State, the total voter turnout as recorded by INEC was 87 per cent with a total of 96 per cent voting for the president.

He said: “One would have expected that if there was going to be a massive voter turnout, no other place would have surpassed the president’s own unit. Because this unit comprises his close and distant relatives – his parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, cousins, nephews, childhood friends, etc.

“But surprisingly, not half of these came out to vote for their own, yet the rest of Bayelsa and the South-south turned out over 90 per cent to vote for their son.

“The truth is that the president did not want anything to cause problem in his ballot box which would have embarrassed him politically. So that box was guarded against any malpractice and so what came out of the box was actually what transpired; but the rest of Bayelsa and others can do as they pleased. This is electoral fraud personified!”

He recalled that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led Federal Government rejected the recommendation from the Electoral Reform Committee it set up that the new INEC should be appointed through an independent process anchored on the National Judicial Council (NJC).

He said in the life of a society, there would come a time when a group of people must have to stand up and point out when the leadership was destroying the nation; explain why things were going wrongly; demonstrate how things could be done rightly; and work towards making a clear difference.

He said this was why the CPC had to go to the tribunal. He noted that in the past, lack of evidence did not allow election petition to succeed.

This, he said, explained why the party was relying on scientific ways, means and methods as the best and most effective platform to prove its case.

He said since there were no two people with the same fingerprint, every fingerprint could be scientifically verified basically through biometrics/forensics methods.

Malami also said if at the end of this case, the truth was undeniably established and it was found out that the allegations of the said electoral fraud were true, then the blame of the post-election violence should be squarely put on the perpetrators of the fraud – for they are the real cause of the violence, which will then be the natural principle of cause and effect.

On the other hand, he said: “If it was established that the PDP got its votes as announced authentically, then our presidential candidate (Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari) will lead  us to the Villa to formally congratulate the president and his deputy to the  advancement of democracy, unity and stability of Nigeria."

Meanwhile, a legal crisis is brewing between CPC and INEC over whose duty it is to gather electoral materials used for the presidential election for the purpose of inspection.

CPC had written to INEC asking it to produce materials used for the presidential election for the purpose of inspection and to subject them to forensic test.

In its reply, INEC directed the party to go to the various states where the materials were located.

This, however, did not go down well with CPC. It therefore refused to follow INEC’s directive of approaching its state secretariats to retrieve the materials.

CPC was irked by the fact that INEC had earlier agreed to avail the party all that it required from it (the commission) only to change later and directed the party to go to the states.

The National Chairman of the party, Prince Tony Momoh, said the CPC would not abide by the directive given by INEC that it should go to the state electoral offices for the required materials.

He said the party would insist on examination of the documents at the INEC’s National Headquarters in Abuja.

He said: “We will not accept any diversion being introduced into the matter by INEC asking us to go to their state electoral offices in the country.

“We will insist on examination of the documents at the INEC’s National Headquarters. We are aware that the original of forms EC8D and EC8E are with INEC here in Abuja; form EC8D is the summary of results of all local governments in each state, and form EC8E is a summary of results of all the states in the federation and FCT.”

Momoh said the party was ready to submit all the materials stated above to forensic examination in order to buttress the claims of substantial non-compliance with the provisions of Electoral Act 2010 during the April 16 presidential election.

CPC, in another statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary Rotimi Fashakin, also accused INEC of not responding to the party’s demand in good faith.

Fashakin explained that the commission had in response to the party’s request promised to make the materials available to it, only for INEC to later direct CPC to the INEC secretariats in the affected states.

He said: “The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had promised in a letter dated 18th April, 2011 (in response to our letter dated same day) to make available all ballot papers and result sheets, which are in safe custody, upon request and payment of necessary fees. The INEC Headquarters that, had all along assumed responsibility, now directed us to liaise with the various State INEC, in pursuant of this noble objective.”

He stated further that the party was ready to meet the necessary financial condition as required by INEC, but according to him, the commission is reluctant to give details of payment.

“We demanded the amount of the fees to be paid and to which account.”

CPC had on Sunday filed a petition seeking to nullify the declaration of Jonathan of the PDP as winner of the April 16 presidential election by asking the court to cancel results in 24 states.

Those in contention are all the states in the South (17); Sokoto, Kaduna, Plateau, Kwara, Benue, Adamawa and Nasarawa in the North, as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

By Tobi Soniyi and Adebiyi Adedapo in Abuja