The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has dismissed last Saturday’s governorship election in Bayelsa state as a choreographed charade, while slamming Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for being part of the sham.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party also criticized the PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan for acting out a prepared script that has done more to thwart democracy than further it.
It wondered why INEC would not have just raised up the hand of PDP candidate, Hon. Seriake Dickson as the affirmed winner, instead of wasting huge public resources to conduct what has now turned out to be a blight on the country’s democratic process and a travesty of fairness and justice.
ACN warned that if the role of INEC in the Bayelsa ‘election’ is a pointer to the new direction of the electoral body, then it may well be throttling down the road to the abyss sooner than anyone had expected under its present leadership.
”First, as always, the PDP – the largest conglomeration of strangest bedfellows in the world, masquerading as a political party – thwarted its own constitution in shamelessly dancing to the discordant and deceptive tunes of a vengeance-seeking President.
”Then, the President of the largest black nation on earth failed to rise above personal anger and base considerations, even when bombarded with entreaties by many, including his predecessors in office, to allow the democratic process to take its course instead of decreeing who will and who will not be governor.
”Finally, an agency funded from the public treasury and mandated to rise above partisanship lent itself to be used in the show of shame, in which one candidate won over 400,000 votes and the closest rival barely managed to cobble 20,000 votes together. Never in the history of elections in these climes, even with our warped standards, have we seen such a farce,” ACN said.
The party said the unfortunate fallout of the Bayelsa mess is the fact that it did a lot to hurt the standing of the President, and further diminished him in the eyes of the citizens.
”The President who had said he knew nothing of the fate that befell his erstwhile state governor suddenly made a 360 degree turnaround, at the launch of Hon. Dickson’s campaign, to bare his fang, while celebrating stone throwing as a way of dealing with those who have failed to deliver the dividends of democracy!
”Sadly, the President also got entangled in an undignifying exchange of words in which he was called every imaginable name. Certainly, the pursuit of transient power, personal vendetta and ego tripping cannot be worth the needless battering to which the President has been subjected – or to which he has subjected himself – in the unfortunate Bayelsa case,” it said.
ACN calls on all the major stakeholders in the Nigeria democratic project, especially INEC, never to allow a repeat of the Bayelsa blur, in the interest of the nation’s democracy.
No comments:
Post a Comment