President Muhammadu Buhari, on Monday, said that anyone found or caught perpetrating ballot box snatching, would do so at the risk of their lives. He said he already given orders to security agencies to be ruthless against party thugs that try to snatched ballot boxes and election riggers.
The president said this while speaking at the APC emergency caucus meeting, at the party headquarters in Abuja.
Governors Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State were, however, conspicuously absent at the meeting.
The meeting was called to discuss prevailing national issues, following Saturday’s postponement of the Presidential and National Assembly elections.
President Buhari, at the meeting, disclosed that he already ordered security agents to deal ruthlessly with party thugs that try to snatched ballot boxes and ballot box snatchers.
He maintained that he remained confident that he had garnered enough supporters having gone round the country to campaign, urged party members to reassure their constituents to come out and vote on the rescheduled dates.
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The President also urged APC agents to watch out for the party’s interests at the polling units.
President Buhari disclosed that he had directed security agencies to identify hot spots and be ready to move should they suspect any attempts to cause problems body of thugs across the country irrespective of party affiliations.
The President said there was no explanations for what we went through.
Said he, “I was told about the decision of INEC at quarter to 5:00am in the morning of the elections.
“INEC had all the time and resources, didn’t have to wait six hours to the elections to announced postponement.
“Definitely, INEC must explain to Nigerians what happened, the constitution and the law protects INEC but they must not take us for granted.
“If we had failed to provide all what INEC wanted, then we would have been held responsible.
“So at least after the elections we will have to go into details to find out what happened,” he said.
The meeting, before it commenced, observed a minute silence in honour of dead supporters at campaign venues across the country.
In his opening remarks, national chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole had described the meeting as ‘all-important.’
He commended President Buhari for going round the country to talk to Nigerians.
The ruling party chairman said, in the course of going round the country, we saw a lot of very fanatical supporters, some of them even looking under fed, but because of their faith that Buhari that only he can deliver dividends of democracy, they came out.
Oshiomhole said the ruling party was determined not to disappoint supporters and Nigerians.
According to him, the party did what is expected to ensure a successful elections including providing all logistics to all those involved in elections exercise including party agents.
We saw INEC’s magic, the worst had happened and postponed the elections by one week without cogent reasons.
If we and ordinary Nigerians were shocked, then we can only imagined how shocked you were, more as as you are determined.
This action was meant to frustrate our party and discourage voters.
We are determined to put INEC to shame, and to reiterated that we are committed to free, fair and credible elections. We are not going to compromise on that.
He said apart from being disgusted about INEC’s postponements, he is curious and suspects there is hidden agenda.
He described as rubbish, INEC’s excuse about Nigeria’s population and challenges of moving materials around.
He called on INEC to move around state commissioners who have been compromised and become institutionalized and which may compromise the outcome of the results.
Oshiomhole insisted that INEC’s knew that the election was not going to hold and did leaked the information to the main opposition party. He said all early warning indicators showed that INEC had something up it sleeves.
He alleged that INEC is working with anti-democratic elements to frustrate free and fair elections.
He said INEC has no right to stop campaigns, insisting that voters need to be reminded as this might result in low voters turn out. He hinted that they are ready to go to court.
Oshiomhole also said the ruling party is going to write INEC to explain if the card readers have been reconfigured and what is the guarantee that it won’t fail, and why deploy only 4,000 card readers, saying what is expected is 176,000 card readers and spares.
He said the ruling party does not want staggered elections but elections conducted simultaneously across all pulling units.
He said INEC need to assure Nigerians that the samples of sensitive materials already in circulation will not compromise the process.
“We must not allow this shock affect our voters, we need to renew campaign and reassure the voters especially APC voters.
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He called on President Buhari to ensure those involve in what he called national sabotage are pushed using the rule of law.
Also in attendance are National Chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, national leader, Bola Tinubu, and Director General of Buhari Campaign Organisation, Rotimi Amaechi.
Governors in attendance as at the time the meeting went into closed doors at were Zamfara, Edo, Ekiti, Borno, Bauchi, Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Niger and Nasarawa.
Others were Plateau, Kaduna, Kogi, Kano, Lagos, Jigawa, Kebbi.
Some National Assembly members in attendance included Senate Majority Leader, Ahmed Lawan, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu and Godswill Akpabio.
Also in attendance were governorship candidates of Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi, Adamawa, Rivers states.
The ministers in attendance were Information and Culture, Power, Works and Housing, Education, and Agriculture.
