Jonathan mulls conduct of polls without police in 2015

inec-logoCJN orders judge to reverse ruling on C’River polls

Police deploy 9,000 officers for guber election

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan’s belief in the sanctity of the electoral process and the need to ensure that votes count in the emergence of leaders was brought into sharp focus yesterday as he pushed for the conduct of election without the police and other security men in 2015.

The President spoke in Calabar at the grand finale of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship campaign of Liyel Imoke ahead of Saturday’s polls in Cross River State.

Yesterday too, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared that a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja did not stop the Cross River State governorship election from going ahead contrary to a widely circulated report.

Mr. Kayode Idowu, the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, said: “This clarification becomes necessary against the background of the report that the court restrained INEC from going ahead with the governorship election through an order issued in Abuja on Monday, February 20, 2012.

“For the avoidance of doubt, INEC has not been served with the purported court order. The commission indeed took the pain to check with the court today, February 21, 2012, whether there was such an order. The court categorically denied issuing the said order. Actually, neither has the court summoned INEC for defence on any date, as was widely reported.”

But it was learnt yesterday that the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Dahiru Musdapher, may have ordered Justice Abdul Kafarati of the Federal High Court, Abuja Division, to rescind his order, which restrained the INEC from going ahead with the governorship election in Cross River State.     

Justice Kafarati was said to have on Monday stopped INEC from going ahead with the scheduled governorship election in the state.       

To make the election hitch-free, the Cross River Police Command is to deploy 9,000 personnel in the state. Police Commissioner Samson Wudah disclosed this in an interview with reporters in Calabar, the state capital.         

At the Imoke’s campaign, Jonathan said: “At the national level, starting from my general election in April last year, we have been advocating one man, one vote, one woman, one vote, one youth, one vote and we are succeeding, INEC is succeeding.”

Amid laud ovation from the large number of PDP supporters, he said: “The next step of our campaign is that we want to make sure we conduct elections in Nigeria without police. We want to conduct elections without security people carrying guns. We want a situation where Nigerians would go, queue up, and vote. The votes are counted and nobody is cheated, so that at the end of the elections there would be no all kinds of litigations with all kinds of stories.

“That is our next campaign and God willing before 2015, we would conduct elections without security men carrying guns to follow us. We are disciplined people, we know we have disciplined people. We know Nigerians are disciplined people. If all of us agree to do it, we would do it. Cross River is one of such states we can use as a model. We can conduct election in this peaceful state without police.”         

Jonathan who acknowledged the good works of Imoke and the unity of Nigeria said: “I want to re-emphasise the good works of Senator Imoke. Let me start with a statement made by President Obasanjo when he said that he sometimes envies the unity we have shown in Cross River State PDP family.”

According to President Jonathan, “Imoke will continue with the spirit of former governor and that is why we are all here. We need to be here. I am here, Vice President is here, Obasanjo is here, Senate President is here, and Speaker of the House of Representatives is here. All the PDP governors of the South-South are here, and of course all the senior citizens, to show that we all believe in the Imoke leadership. So for those of us from Cross River State, we charge you that on Saturday that the election would come up, you go there and make sure you vote Liyel Imoke back.”        

On his part, former President Olusegun Obasanjo called for total support for Imoke saying, “the reason why I am here is because in my part of the world, we have a saying that when your masquerade is dancing well then you are a happy man. Our dear governor Liyel Imoke is my own masquerade, and he is dancing so well. If you have not seen it, you have heard it. I have seen it and heard it and tasted it and felt it. If you have a good product, you will jealously guard it and then you don’t sell it cheap. You don’t sell a good product cheap and this product is good and when on Saturday you go out, the only way you are not selling this product cheap is to massively vote for Governor Imoke.

“You are here together, it is not because you haven’t had frictions but you oil your frictions and remain one strong PDP family. Whether you want to believe that or not, some of us envy you. I am happy to be part of this celebration. This is not the end but the beginning because after the election on Saturday, we will come back to celebrate and of course my own masquerade is dancing well.”